A short-term bilateral working group created in Sept 2025 by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves to advise both finance ministries on capital‑market links and digital‑asset cooperation. It is co‑chaired by officials from HM Treasury and the U.S. Treasury and includes representatives from UK and U.S. regulators responsible for capital markets and digital‑asset regulation, plus industry experts (private‑sector participants) for input.
HM Treasury represents the UK government’s economic and regulatory policy interests and co‑chairs the Taskforce to coordinate UK regulators and industry; the U.S. Department of the Treasury represents U.S. fiscal and financial policy, chairs U.S. engagement and brings U.S. regulators into the Taskforce. Both ministries jointly convene regulators and industry to develop recommendations but do not themselves replace independent U.S. or UK regulatory agencies.
Scott Bessent is the 79th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (sworn in Jan 28, 2025); as Secretary he leads the Treasury Department, chairs interagency forums like the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) and advises the President on economic policy—but he does not directly run independent U.S. regulators (e.g., the SEC or CFTC), which have statutory authorities of their own.
In this context “digital assets” means tradable electronic assets and the systems that support them — typically cryptocurrencies (e.g., bitcoin), stablecoins (price‑pegged digital tokens used for payments), and tokenized securities/other digital tokens representing traditional financial instruments or rights; regulators also consider related market infrastructure (exchanges, custody and settlement).
The UK‑U.S. Financial Regulatory Working Group (FRWG) is an established bilateral forum for coordinating financial‑regulatory cooperation between HM Treasury and the U.S. Treasury. The Taskforce will deliver its recommendations to both finance ministries via the FRWG, which can coordinate follow‑up between regulators and governments on implementing those recommendations.
Officials say the January 26 London engagement convened senior U.S. Treasury and regulatory representatives together with industry participants; public releases name broad participation by UK and U.S. regulators and leading industry experts but do not provide a public, itemized attendee list for the Jan. 26 meeting.
Possible outcomes include coordinated cross‑border guidance or memoranda of understanding to ease capital‑raising across the Atlantic, shared approaches or standards for regulating digital assets (crypto, stablecoins, tokenization), requests for rulemaking by independent regulators, and supervisory cooperation — any specific actions would follow separate domestic rulemaking or legislation and interagency coordination after the Taskforce’s summer‑2026 recommendations.