HSBC and Standard Chartered complete first Swift ledger exchange

HSBC and Standard Chartered executed the first live tokenised deposit transaction on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, completing the first interbank exchange on the platform and recording tokenised deposit obligations on both banks’ systems.

The transaction followed Swift’s July announcement that its ledger was ready for initial use. Swift has said 17 banks across six continents are preparing to pilot tokenised-deposit flows intended to enable 24/7 payments and improve liquidity efficiency.

In the exchange, Swift acted as an orchestration layer that matched and netted obligations between HSBC and Standard Chartered before final settlement. After matching and netting, the agreed positions were settled through each bank’s existing payment systems. The resulting obligations were posted as tokenised deposit entries on HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service (TDS) and on Standard Chartered’s tokenised-deposit infrastructure.

Tokenised deposits are bank-issued digital representations of deposit balances. Recording interbank obligations on a distributed ledger lets banks show tokenised entries of those obligations on their systems, which can shorten the time needed to move liquidity between institutions and reduce some frictions in cross-border transfers.

Lewis Sun, Head of Digital Currencies at HSBC, described the exchange as “a landmark moment for the promise of tokenised deposits,” saying it shows how digital money issued by banks can be interoperable across institutions while keeping regulatory oversight intact. He added that the capability can help corporates move liquidity around the world, increase cash visibility and simplify some cross-border processes.

The live exchange did not change how final settlement is completed; Swift’s ledger handled pre-settlement matching and netting, and each bank used its existing settlement rails for final completion. Banks participating in Swift’s pilot are testing how the protocol links to their tokenised-deposit services and back-office processes ahead of wider use.

The transaction tested interoperability between bank-led tokenised cash systems and the coordination layer Swift provides. Banks in the pilot plan to continue experiments to expand tokenised-deposit use cases and to assess operational and regulatory implications.