Banks Combine Tokenised Deposits and Stablecoins

Banks that offer both tokenised deposits and bank-issued stablecoins are responding to demand for programmable liquidity and faster cross-border settlement. Several projects are moving from pilot phases into production environments.

Tokenised deposits are recorded on a bank’s regulated balance sheet and remain inside its KYC perimeter. That structure makes them suitable for programmable operations such as real-time cash concentration, conditional disbursement and atomic settlement between corporate entities.

Bank-issued stablecoins are designed to move value across currency and jurisdictional boundaries. They can enable payments where local deposits are limited by capital controls or where traditional correspondent routes are slow or unavailable.

Practical use cases advancing into production include settlement outside standard banking hours, delivery-versus-payment that clears instantly instead of taking days, and treasury dashboards that show liquidity across entities without manual reconciliation. Tokenised deposits are being used to automate liquidity that would otherwise sit idle across subsidiaries. Stablecoins are being trialed for merchant and card flows and for faster correspondent settlement across currencies.

Demand is coming from corporates and from other banks and market infrastructure participants. Correspondent banks and counterparties increasingly expect direct on-chain or tokenised connections as part of their service model. The ability to support both tokenised deposits and stablecoins is becoming a factor in mandate decisions and in requests for proposals.

Regulation and policy remain constraints. Tokenised deposits operate within existing capital and KYC frameworks. Cross-border stablecoin flows raise questions about capital controls, licensing, anti-money laundering checks and supervisory treatment. Technology can enable atomic settlement and programmability, but legal frameworks and regulatory permission are needed for broader adoption and for banks to record these instruments fully on balance sheet.

Industry discussion is continuing through events and panels that bring together banks, custody and infrastructure providers. An industry webinar hosted with Fireblocks will convene experts to discuss where tokenised deposits and stablecoins fit in mandate strategies, which use cases are ready for production and what policy challenges remain. Speakers include Shrutisagar (Shruti) Chandrasekaran, vice-president of Global Business Solutions at Fireblocks, with Scott Hamilton, a global payments and liquidity expert, moderating the session.

For banks, offering a single instrument addresses part of clients’ needs; offering both covers internal liquidity management and cross-border settlement. The pace of adoption will depend on banks’ ability to connect with correspondents, align technical interoperability and obtain clear regulatory guidance.