Odaily Planet Daily News: British Finance Minister Tulip Siddiq is pushing the UK to start issuing "digital gilts" on the blockchain. However, a former minister and several department officials familiar with the discussions revealed that the Debt Management Office (DMO), the executive agency of the Treasury responsible for issuing and managing government bonds, opposed the move. Officials said Siddiq was determined to move forward to combat the risk of Britain being "left behind" by its global peers. In recent decades, traditional bonds have largely shifted from paper bonds to electronic transactions, and the difference between digital bonds is that it is issued and traded using blockchain technology. Supporters say the technology can improve efficiency and reduce costs by eliminating middlemen. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink hailed it as the "next generation" of financial markets. But the use of blockchain to issue bonds is still in its infancy and only accounts for a small part of the market. Experts say that multiple systems are being developed for issuing digital bonds, which means that the infrastructure developed today may be different from the infrastructure that eventually prevails. A finance ministry official briefed on the discussions said: "There has been some resistance to reform but Tulip doesn't see any specific reason why it shouldn't be done. In the long term this is where we want to be. We are not keeping pace with the rest of the world and there is a risk of being left behind." (FT)