Built in nine months, the new infrastructure lets banks move tokenised deposits around the clock before settling through existing rails
Swift‘s blockchain-based ledger is ready for initial use, with 17 banks across six continents preparing to pilot live transactions using tokenised deposits.
The ledger, announced on 9 July, has moved from concept to activation in nine months. It gives participating banks an orchestration layer for bank-issued tokenised deposits held on their own ledgers, allowing funds to move for customers overnight and at weekends before final settlement completes through existing systems.
Swift said the model improves client experience and liquidity efficiency without disturbing the compliance, credit and risk controls embedded in existing payment processing.
The pilot group includes HSBC, Citi, BNP Paribas, Standard Chartered, DBS, UBS, MUFG, BNY, ANZ, Lloyds Banking Group, Mashreq, OCBC and UOB.
Thierry Chilosi, Chief Business Officer at Swift, said: “With our new ledger capability, we’re extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money.
“It allows tokenised value to move across borders with the velocity and flexibility modern commerce expects, while maintaining the same high levels of resiliency, security, and compliance global finance requires.”
Banks connect tokenised deposit services
Several of the pilot banks are bringing existing tokenised deposit programmes to the infrastructure. HSBC is connecting its Tokenised Deposit Service to the ledger, building on tokenised deposit capabilities it already runs across multiple markets.
Manish Kohli, Head of Global Payments Solutions at HSBC, said the launch was a “a positive step towards making [cross-border payments] work the way our clients’ businesses operate today – in real time, across time zones, and without artificial cut-offs”.
DBS, which has piloted tokenised deposits in cross-border payments, said the technology must achieve a level of interoperability to achieve notable scale. Lim Soon Chong, Group Head of Global Transaction Services at DBS, said: “Interoperability with existing payment rails and application in real world use cases will be critical for these capabilities to scale.”
For Citi, the ledger feeds into its own network strategy. Debopama Sen, Head of Payments, Services at Citi, said: “Leveraging Swift’s innovative blockchain based messaging infrastructure allows us to create interoperable payment solutions, powered by Citi’s network, [and] enhances our ability to serve our global clients with greater speed, resilience and security.”
Elsewhere, Standard Chartered‘s Global Head of Cash Management, Mahesh Kini, said the combination of tokenised deposits with the bank’s network would deliver “instant, always-on money movement”, giving financial institution and corporate clients “real-time visibility, enhanced liquidity control, and the speed needed to stay ahead in managing capital globally”.
Interoperability the next test
The connectivity between digital money networks has been a deciding factor for many, including UBS, whose Group Head of Digital Assets at UBS, Andreas Kubli, said: “We see interoperability as the key enabler for scaling tokenised deposits beyond individual institutions.”
Kellie Johnson, SVP, Americas, Payments at RedCompass Labs, made a similar point from outside the pilot group, noting Swift is orchestrating across existing rails instead of replacing them.
“That’s a pragmatic design choice, but it also means the harder question isn’t whether this works inside the pilot – it’s whether the bank-specific ledgers underneath stay interoperable, or whether we end up with another set of ‘digital islands’,” Johnson said. “ISO 20022 could be part of the answer, if it’s used consistently across both new and legacy rails.’
Swift said 75% of payments on its network already reach beneficiary banks within 10 minutes, and that the ledger’s functionality and availability will expand after the initial controlled go-live phase.
