The United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has selected four companies—Monee Financial Technologies, ReStabilise, Revolut, and VVTX—to participate in a dedicated stablecoin cohort within its Regulatory Sandbox. The firms were chosen from a pool of 20 applicants and will begin testing in the first quarter of 2026.
The sandbox, which opened for applications in November 2025, is designed to allow prospective UK stablecoin issuers to pilot pound or other fiat-backed tokens and related payment use cases in a controlled environment. The FCA stated that testing will focus on stablecoin issuance and a range of use cases including payments, wholesale settlement, and crypto trading. The findings are intended to directly inform the UK's final stablecoin rules, expected later in 2026.
Matthew Long, director of payments and digital assets at the FCA, emphasized that the regulator's involvement aims to ensure stablecoins "can be trusted for payments, settlement and trading," benefiting consumers and financial transactions while supporting the government's National Payments Vision. All participating companies will need to be authorized under the new permanent stablecoin regime once it goes live in October 2027.
However, the FCA's plans have faced criticism from industry leaders. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, in a social media post, warned that proposals from the Bank of England to cap individual and business stablecoin holdings could act as an "innovation blocker." He urged UK residents to support a pro-innovation strategy, highlighting a petition by Stand With Crypto UK that has garnered over 80,000 signatures.
The initiative is part of the UK's broader regulatory timeline, following the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, and positions the country within a competitive global landscape that includes the EU's MiCA framework.
