Are Banks Ready for Digital Money?

RedCompass Labs published new data assessing how prepared banks are for digital money after a series of launches and policy steps in June 2026.

A 140-member consortium including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock and Stripe launched Open USD, a shared dollar-denominated stablecoin network intended for broad retail and institutional use. In the same month, The Clearing House announced a bank-led tokenised-deposit network with participation from JPMorgan, Citi, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

SoFi became the first US national bank to embed a dollar stablecoin in its consumer app. Western Union and MoneyGram began issuing dollar tokens for use across their remittance corridors.

At the central-bank level, the European Central Bank plans to launch its wholesale settlement platform Pontos this quarter. The ECB continues work on a retail digital euro pilot projected for 2027.

Regulatory and market infrastructure activity is advancing alongside these launches. In the United States, legislative proposals and frameworks such as the GENIUS Act are under discussion. Europe has implemented Markets in Crypto‑Assets, and the UK has introduced a systemic stablecoin regime.

RedCompass Labs will present its findings in a Finextra webinar organised in association with RedCompass Labs. The session will examine how banks can support stablecoins, tokenised deposits and central bank digital currencies, what infrastructure changes are required, and how payment rails should be designed for cross-border and business-to-business payments. Speakers include Santhosh Kumar, senior payments SME at RedCompass Labs; Mark Willis, global head of emerging payments at Standard Chartered; Neil Chopra, head of financial markets at Fireblocks; and moderator Scott Hamilton, global payments and liquidity expert.

The industry is working on technical and operational issues needed to connect on-chain assets to existing systems. Areas under discussion include integration with payment hubs, how liquidity management systems will treat tokenised balances, custody arrangements, transaction messaging, settlement finality and interoperability between public and permissioned ledgers.

Banks and payments firms are also assessing the impact on deposit composition and risk controls. Firms must adapt compliance, know-your-customer checks and counterparty risk processes for on-chain transactions and tokenised bank liabilities.

Market participants expect phased onboarding, staged testing and interoperability work. Remittance providers have deployed dollar tokens for corridor use, while bank-led tokenised deposits and wholesale CBDC platforms are being positioned for interbank settlement, large-value payments and institutional liquidity. Registration details for the webinar are available through the event organiser.