Digital Trust Centre Report calls on Scotland to lead the shift to digital assets and tokenisation

The Digital Trust Centre, Scotland’s Centre of Excellence for Digital Trust and Distributed Ledger Technology, has published Digital Finance 2030 Strategy – a briefing setting out why Scotland should act now to lead as global finance moves to digital assets and tokenisation.

Tokenisation is reshaping how money, shares, bonds and fund units are traded and settled. The report describes it as a generational upgrade to the financial system, and one with particular significance for Scotland. The country’s financial-services sector manages around £500 billion in assets and employs 151,000 people, with a strong concentration in the fund and operations roles this transition will change most.

The stakes are significant. The report estimates that acting on the opportunity could be worth £3-5 billion a year to the Scottish economy, as part of a UK-wide prize of up to £53 billion of additional output by 2035. With the UK’s new regulatory regime for digital assets going live on 25 October 2027, the report argues that the window to build a clear, evidenced Scottish position is now.

Scotland starts from a position of strength: distributed-ledger research at three of its leading universities, a growing FinTech cluster, the Digital Assets (Scotland) Act 2026, and firms already moving – Edinburgh’s Baillie Gifford recently launched the UK’s first natively tokenised investment fund. The report sets out eight practical actions for government, agencies and industry, from a Digital Assets Policy Statement to a tokenisation readiness assessment of Scotland’s largest firms.

Crucially, the report frames this as a job for the whole ecosystem. Prepared with contributions from across industry and Scottish Enterprise, and drawing on the Centre’s work with universities, FinTech Scotland and the public sector, it makes the case that progress will come from collaboration rather than any single organisation acting alone.

Peter Ferry, CEO of the Digital Trust Centre and Visiting Associate Professor at Edinburgh Napier University, said: “Scotland’s financial services industry stands at a watershed. A tide in global finance is turning on tokenisation, and those who move with it will prosper. We have the people, expertise, great firms and a proud history of financial innovation. What we need now is resolve, and the coordination to act as one, to secure jobs and build the businesses of the future here in Scotland.”

Alongside the report, the Centre is launching its third Innovation Challenge, focused on tokenisation and digital assets, with Challenge Partners Morgan Stanley and Zumo. The Challenge invites companies to develop and test solutions against a real industry problem, with grant funding for successful teams, development support and access to the Centre’s industry partners. Pre-registration is open now, ahead of the formal launch in early October.

Trust is the foundation of a digital economy – and the Digital Trust Centre exists to help Scotland build, prove and scale it. Digital Finance 2030 Strategy is a call for Scotland to do exactly that in one of the fastest-moving areas of finance.

Read more about the report and register your interest in the Innovation Challenge.