The City of London Corporation, Digital Pound Foundation, The Payments Association, TheCityUK and UK Finance say their aim is to develop better policies, practice and regulation around digital currencies.

By combining the expertise and extended network of the five associations, the group will seek to enable a safe and secure environment for innovators to grow and attract international investment into the UK, while also helping to create a constructive bridge between the associations representing both incumbents and the emerging players in the sector.

The formation of the group comes after the economic secretary to the Treasury Andrew Griffith told MPs that the UK was committed to becoming a world crypto hub.

Griffith told the Treasury Select Committee that the government was "a long way down the road... to establish a regime for the wholesale use, for payment purposes, of stablecoins".

A public consultation on the attributes of a digital pound would be launched in coming weeks, Griffiths told the Committee. There will also be a public consultation on Britain’s first general regulatory approach to crypto assets.