What Are UK Gilts? A Complete Beginner's Guide
Av Financial World News redaktion · Pedagogisk förklaring · Hur vi hämtar räntor
UK gilts are sterling bonds issued by HM Treasury. Learn how they work, who issues them and why investors hold them.
Guidens fullständiga briefing är på engelska. Titel, sammanfattning och navigering är på ditt språk så att du kan avgöra om du vill läsa vidare.
What Are UK Gilts — the mechanics
Gilts are the UK government’s IOUs: you lend sterling to HM Treasury and receive coupons plus repayment at maturity. They sit at the centre of British savings, pensions and Bank of England policy.
The word gilt comes from gilt-edged: historically, certificates with gilded borders. Today it simply means a sterling bond of the UK government, listed and transferable, not a savings account and not an NS&I product.
Conventional names look like 4¼% Treasury Gilt 2034 — coupon, then year. The Debt Management Office (DMO) issues them; the Bank of England may hold some via the Asset Purchase Facility, which matters for how much free float is left for the market.
If you only remember one distinction: a gilt’s contractual cash is in pounds, on known dates. The price between those dates is not known. Holding to maturity removes price path risk; it does not remove inflation or opportunity-cost risk.
Official sources (UK Gilts)
Primary statistics and prospectuses for UK Gilts are published by the issuer, not by this newsroom. The labelled links at the end of this page go to those official sites (DMO, TreasuryDirect, Finanzagentur, MEF, AFT, SNB or ECB as relevant).
Our live board is a teaching overlay: dated prints, named sources, estimated ISIN lines. It is not a replacement for the issuer’s calendar.
Viktiga punkter
- The word gilt comes from gilt-edged: historically, certificates with gilded borders.
- Prices and yields change. When this site quotes them, it dates them on the live board.
- Credit of a G7 government in its own currency is not the same as a stable screen price, and not the same as a bank deposit.
Vanliga frågor
- Who issues gilts?
- The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) issues gilts on behalf of HM Treasury.
- Are gilts the same as savings bonds NS&I?
- No. Gilts trade in the market; NS&I products are separate retail savings from the Treasury.