U.K. fintech Tokenovate has joined the Bank of England’s (BoE) Synchronisation Lab, part of the central bank’s quest to link central bank money with other digital ledgers. The Lab is a non-live environment designed to explore synchronized payment capabilities in the U.K.’s new real-time gross settlement (RTGS) engine, or “core ledger,” named RT2.
The Lab will give Tokenovate the chance to showcase its expertise in “tokenized settlement, derivative and collateral workflows, and multilateral financial orchestration.”
The firm will join 17 other participants, each focusing on a specific task within the financial/markets sector. These include house purchases, cross-border spot FX, multi-money issuance/redemption, tokenized securities, and others. Participants’ different focuses and solutions are intended to complement one another, rather than compete.
The Synchronisation Lab will explore different use cases and business models for synchronization, which in this case means secure interoperability between RT2 (the central bank) and external ledgers. It will study various new technologies and techniques, like blockchain, digital payment rails, and tokenization.
Tokenovate’s primary focus area is Collateral Optimization: Conditional Margin payments, along with fellow fintech firm OSTTRA. The Novat Protocol, which Tokenovate unveiled last year, is a programmable settlement protocol designed to unlock liquidity in financial markets through true T+0 (or near-instant) and legally final settlements.
Rather than tokenizing the assets being moved, the Novat Protocol tokenizes the act of settlement itself. The token created represents legal obligations in the process, and is “burned” once settlement is finalized. It’s based on the FINOS Common Domain Model (CDM), a shared data standard for financial products and events.
Digital tokenization of real-world assets, which often involves blockchain, is accelerating markets and enabling broader access for traders. But even if assets themselves are widely tokenized, transfers may still be slowed down by any disconnection between their trading platforms and existing cash/custodial systems. Any bottleneck in final settlement means potentially useful liquidity sits idle in the waiting room.
“The Synchronisation Lab provides a valuable opportunity to test ideas in a collaborative environment alongside the Bank of England and other participants,” said Richard Baker, CEO and Founder of Tokenovate.
“We will bring our experience and insights to exploratory work examining how settlement could become more programmable and tokenized, while continuing to operate alongside existing custodial and RTGS infrastructures over the coming months of the project.”
Real interaction between central bank money and different asset markets
RTSG represents the “backbone” of a country’s overall financial infrastructure. It operates in real time, settling individual high-value payments with instant and final settlement. These payments cannot be bundled, and banks can’t offset what they owe each other as a guard against systemic risk.
Think of it as the official record for the U.K.’s (or any other country’s) money. RTGS is essentially an accounting system, and it’s where banks and the government hold their main accounts. In the U.K., only 35 firms can interact directly with the RTGS. These include the main high street and settlement banks, as well as financial infrastructure firms such as the London Stock Exchange, Euroclear (Crest), and CLS Bank.
The BoE said “preserving and enhancing the usefulness of central bank money” lies at the heart of its work, and the Lab is a platform for safe innovation in money and payments. RT2, a major renewal of the U.K.’s RTGS infrastructure, went live on April 28, 2025.
This role is becoming increasingly relevant as the prominence of mainstream digital assets like USD stablecoins grows, challenging national currencies worldwide due to their availability.
Introducing synchronization to RT2 would enable things like atomic settlement with central bank money, something that’s lacking despite technological advances in individual markets. Funds could be moved between RT2 accounts based on asset transfers from external ledgers.
Financial and asset markets prioritize speed, efficiency, and low cost, but this can’t come with increased risks that a final and legal settlement might fail. It must work even for more complex financial products, such as derivatives and collateral workflows.
Launched in October 2025, the Synchronisation Lab project is designed to be exploratory, and “to support research and understanding,” rather than have its participants compete to deploy their own particular solution.
“Synchronisation is one of several mutually supportive initiatives we are pursuing, where the collective benefits for users should be more than the sum of their parts,” the Bank of England stated.
It will begin in spring 2026 and run for about six months, testing various scenarios for RTGS account holders, asset ledger operators, and end-customers in relevant asset markets. The Lab is intended to evaluate the options presented and use them to validate the Bank of England’s final design choices for RT2 synchronization capability.
Watch: Tokenovate milestones unveiled at #LDNBlockchain24
Source: https://coingeek.com/tokenovate-joins-boe-project-to-link-central-bank-money-assets/
