Tokenised deposits and stablecoins complete banks’ digital money

At a recent webinar hosted by Fireblocks, industry experts discussed how tokenised deposits combined with bank-issued stablecoins can form a complete digital-money offering for banks.

The panel included Shrutisagar (Shruti) Chandrasekaran, vice president for global business solutions at Fireblocks, with Scott Hamilton serving as moderator. Panelists described how each instrument addresses distinct parts of the payments chain and why both are needed for multinational clients.

Tokenised deposits are digital records of bank deposits that remain on the issuing bank’s balance sheet and inside its KYC and regulatory perimeter. The panel explained that tokenised deposits enable programmable operations such as real-time cash concentration, conditional disbursements, atomic settlement and automated liquidity sweeps across legal entities.

Bank-issued stablecoins are digital tokens intended for payments and designed to be redeemable or backed by regulated bank liabilities. Panelists said stablecoins enable near-instant movement of value across borders and can operate where local-currency balances are constrained by capital controls.

Panelists identified gaps when a bank offers only one of the two instruments. Tokenised deposits support intra-group liquidity and payment automation but cannot by themselves clear retail or merchant payments across national borders that require currency conversion or are subject to capital controls. Stablecoins enable cross-border merchant flows and faster settlement that deposits cannot reach on their own.

Speakers cited practical use cases moving toward production: settlement outside traditional banking hours; delivery-versus-payment that clears instantly instead of over multiple days; and treasury systems that provide real-time visibility across entities without manual reconciliation. Panelists said these applications reduce idle balances and speed transaction finality for corporate treasuries and market participants.

Demand for interoperability is coming from correspondent banks, counterparties and infrastructure providers as well as corporate clients. The panel reported that correspondent expectations are making tokenised-deposit and stablecoin connectivity a factor in requests for proposals, and banks unable to connect risk losing business to those that can.

Regulatory and policy issues remain significant constraints. Panelists emphasised that programmable money does not remove regulatory limits or override capital controls. Implementation requires alignment with compliance teams, prudential rules and national policy frameworks, and banks must design offerings that operate within those boundaries.