Foreword The Bank of England’s core mission is to promote the good of the people of the UK by maintaining monetary and financial stability. Trust in money is a critical part of that mission, and it has never been more relevant than now. As innovation in money and payments accelerates, including through the growth of stablecoins, it is our job to ensure that the public can have the same trust in new forms of money as they do in existing ones. With that comes great opportunities. We are designing a regulatory regime for stablecoins that is fit for the future. Our focus is on possible future use in real world payments and settlements, not their current use to buy and sell cryptoassets. Use of regulated stablecoins could lead to faster, cheaper retail and wholesale payments, with greater functionality, both at home and across borders. We want to support such a role for stablecoins as part of a ‘multi-money’ system alongside commercial bank money (including tokenised bank deposits), all underpinned by the continued role of central bank money at the heart of the financial system.Our approach is necessarily forward-looking: we know from other areas of technological innovation that retrofitting regulations once real-world applications have emerged at scale is unlikely to succeed. Instead, we are setting out clear standards to ensure that systemic stablecoins purporting to be money deliver stability of nominal value, robust legal claim, and the ability always to redeem at par in fiat currency. Since publishing our discussion paper on our regime in 2023, we have engaged extensively with industry and other stakeholders. We have listened carefully to and are grateful for the feedback received, which has shaped the proposals we are consulting on today. Following this consultation, we will consider the feedback received before consulting on and finalising our rules in 2026. Our regime is designed to maintain financial stability and enable systemic stablecoin issuers to operate viable business models. Alongside granting such issuers access to a deposit account at the Bank, we are proposing that they can hold a portion of their backing assets in short-term UK government debt. We are also considering putting in place central bank liquidity arrangements to help backstop issuers’ ability to monetise those assets if needed.Payments are networks ? the more people use them, the more powerful they become. We are therefore keen to work closely with stakeholders to deliver interoperability between systemic stablecoins, traditional and tokenised bank deposits, and central bank money. We will take this forward through the Bank’s chairing of the new Retail Payments Infrastructure Board, which is designing the UK’s next generation retail payments infrastructure. We will also explore the roles stablecoins could play in wholesale financial markets via the Digital Securities Sandbox.I look forward to hearing your views on the proposals set out in this consultation paper to deliver a future payments ecosystem that is trusted, resilient, and fit for the digital age.