FCA Approves On-chain Fund Registers; Visa Adds Polygon, Base

The UK Financial Conduct Authority published policy statement PS26/7 on Thursday allowing authorized funds to keep investor registers on on-chain distributed ledgers and to issue fund units across multiple blockchains. The guidance adopts an industry “Blueprint” model for integrating tokenization into the existing fund regime.

PS26/7 states it wants to “support innovation in the UK asset management sector” as part of a broader digital assets roadmap. The statement confirms that on-chain transaction records can serve as the primary books for unit deals if firms maintain “appropriate resiliency plans.” The FCA noted the Blueprint has already supported authorization of the first tokenized UK UCITS.

Under the guidance, authorized funds may hold their register on public DLT networks when governance, controls and investor protections meet regulatory standards. Funds can issue units across several blockchains provided investor rights, fees and reconciliation processes remain consistent regardless of the network used.

The FCA sets expectations for operational resilience, governance, reconciliation and maintaining investor rights when records or dealing occur on-chain. PS26/7 does not create a separate experimental regime and references a January 2025 letter that outlines a wider digital assets roadmap.

Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement pilot, launched in 2023, to include Polygon, Base, the Canton Network, Arc and Tempo. Those networks join Ethereum, Solana, Stellar and Avalanche, bringing the program to nine blockchains. Visa reported the pilot has reached an annualized settlement run rate of about $7 billion and that volume grew roughly 50% quarter over quarter.

The pilot allows Visa partners to settle transactions with stablecoins instead of traditional banking rails to test technical and operational outcomes such as faster clearing, round-the-clock availability and potential efficiencies for cross-border payments. Visa noted pilot volumes remain small compared with its core payments business and that the exercise is focused on evaluation rather than replacing existing rails.

Both the FCA guidance and Visa’s pilot set practical requirements for participants. Fund managers must meet controls and investor protection standards to use on-chain registers, including resilience and reconciliation measures. Visa requires partners to connect to supported networks and meet technical and compliance standards to participate in stablecoin settlement experiments.