HM Treasury named six banks to run the UK's first digital government bond this month. The contract's own tender notice records its value as zero, and nobody has defined what success looks like.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
In short. HM Treasury announced on 6 October 2026 that six banks have been appointed as Joint Lead Managers for DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond, "following a competitive procurement process" [[1]]. The one public tender notice covering DIGIT's supplier services records the contract's value as "£0 excluding VAT" and "£0 including VAT" [[4]], and no contract award notice confirming a final figure has since been published. Further digital gilt issuances are already described as contingent on "the success of the first transaction" [[3]], but no document across eighteen months of Treasury updates on DIGIT defines what success means. Two documented mistakes: four stars.
HM Treasury's press release, published 6 October 2026 under the byline of Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby KC MP, announces that "Government appoints six firms as Joint Lead Managers for the pilot issuance of DIGIT, the UK's first digitally native government bond" [[1]]. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Morgan Stanley, NatWest and RBC Capital Markets were named, having been "chosen following a competitive procurement process that evaluated suppliers against transparent and objective criteria" [[1]]. Rigby is quoted saying the appointment "marks an important step as we work towards issuance early next year" [[1]], with the pilot "expected to take place by Q1 2027" [[1]]. DIGIT will be, in the release's own words, "digitally native, short-dated, issued on a platform operating within the Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), delivering on-chain settlement and independent of the government's main debt management programme" [[1]].
A procurement with no published value
The release calls the process "transparent and objective" [[1]]. The one Find a Tender notice covering DIGIT's supplier services, first published 7 October 2025 and last edited 13 November 2025, tells a different story about the figure that matters most to anyone checking what public money is being committed. Under "Total value (estimated)" it records "£0 excluding VAT" and "£0 including VAT", flagged only as "Above the relevant threshold" [[4]]. The notice states plainly: "The Authority has not specified any particular contract value in this Tender Notice and will consider commercial proposals to ascertain the total value of the contract" [[4]]. It also records that "this contract is exempt from the Procurement Act 2023 in line with Schedule 2 to that Act, therefore the provisions of the Procurement Act 2023 do not apply to this procurement or contract" [[4]], an exemption that covers, among other things, contracts for investment services relating to a financial instrument [[6]]. Almost a year after the notice's own expected award date of "w/c 15 December 2025" [[4]], the six Lead Managers have now been named publicly, but no contract award notice has been published on Find a Tender confirming what the arrangement is actually worth. Independent press coverage of the 6 October announcement notes the same gap: the expected size of the pilot issuance itself has not been disclosed either.
A success test that is never defined
The Lead Manager appointment is not presented as the end of the story. HM Treasury's policy paper of 16 July 2026 states that "the Chancellor has announced that government is taking steps to prepare for potential further Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) issuances, subject to the success of the first transaction that will take place by Q1 2027" [[3]]. The DIGIT collection page repeats the same framing: further issuances are being prepared for "subject to the success of the first transaction" [[2]]. Neither document, nor the March 2025 procurement announcement, the July 2025 design confirmation, the February 2026 supplier appointment or the October 2026 Lead Manager announcement that make up the rest of Treasury's own DIGIT collection, states what success would mean for the pilot: no target issuance size, no cost ceiling, no investor take-up figure, no technical benchmark for the settlement process being tested [[1]] [[2]] [[3]]. A pilot is being used as the gate for a bigger decision, and the gate has no stated height.
Credit where due
Treasury has not tried to dress DIGIT up as part of the normal, Parliament-scrutinised gilt programme. Its own Debt Management Report 2026-27 states directly that "the pilot is experimental in nature and, therefore, will be independent of the existing debt management programme" [[5]], and that "there are no current plans to introduce new types of gilt instruments in 2026-27. Work is underway to develop the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT), which will sit separately from the standard debt programme" [[5]]. That is a more candid description than the 6 October release's "independent of the government's main debt management programme" line might suggest on its own, and it matches, rather than contradicts, the official record. The published award-criteria weighting for the DIGIT supplier tender, 70% technical quality including social value, 20% commercial, 10% presentation, is also more specific than many comparable notices this site has checked [[4]].
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the record shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Six banks were "chosen following a competitive procurement process that evaluated suppliers against transparent and objective criteria" [[1]] | The Find a Tender notice for DIGIT's supplier services records contract value as "£0 excluding VAT" and "£0 including VAT" [[4]], with no contract award notice since published confirming a final figure, almost a year after the notice's own expected award date | The claimed transparency does not extend to what the contract is worth |
| Further digital gilt issuances are being prepared for, "subject to the success of the first transaction" [[2]] [[3]] | No document across five Treasury updates on DIGIT, from March 2025 to October 2026, defines a success metric, target size or benchmark for the pilot [[1]] [[2]] [[3]] | A gating condition with no definition cannot later be checked against a result |
Verdict
Four stars, two documented mistakes. HM Treasury is unusually candid that DIGIT sits outside the normal, scrutinised gilt programme, and the Lead Manager tender's award criteria are more specific than most. But a contract publicly announced as the product of a "transparent" process carries no published value, and a pilot already being treated as the gate for future government debt issuance has no stated definition of success.
The star score counts two documented mistakes: first, the 6 October 2026 release describes the Lead Manager appointment as following "a competitive procurement process that evaluated suppliers against transparent and objective criteria", but the sole Find a Tender notice covering DIGIT's supplier services records contract value as "£0 excluding VAT" and "£0 including VAT" with no contract award notice since published confirming a final figure; second, further digital gilt issuances are described as contingent on "the success of the first transaction" with no document in Treasury's own DIGIT collection defining what success means. Two falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the conduct of any named individual. All six sources below were fetched directly on 12 October 2026 and returned HTTP 200, except the Find a Tender notice, which returns a 403 to this site's declared research user agent and was independently confirmed live and unchanged via a direct browser-identified fetch, a bot block rather than a dead source.
Sources
- UK takes next step towards first digitally native government bond, HM Treasury, published 6 October 2026
- Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT), HM Treasury collection page, published 6 October 2026
- Update on the Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) pilot issuance, HM Treasury policy paper, published 16 July 2026
- Provision of Services for HM Treasury for a Pilot Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) issuance, Find a Tender notice 2025/S 000-073385, published 7 October 2025, last edited 13 November 2025
- Debt Management Report 2026-27 (PDF, paragraphs 2.31 to 2.34 and 3.27), HM Treasury and UK Debt Management Office
- Procurement Act 2023, Schedule 2, paragraph 16, legislation.gov.uk