Tokenised deposits and distributed-ledger settlement

Tokenised deposits and distributed-ledger settlement can place regulated bank liabilities, central-bank settlement assets and financial instruments on shared programmable platforms. These arrangements may change the speed, visibility, governance and topology of payments. The projects assessed here remain prototypes, pilots or early deployments directed primarily at efficiency and resilience. No verified public case in the source set establishes their use as an economic-warfare instrument.

Start with the liability

A tokenised commercial-bank deposit remains a claim on a deposit-taking bank. It is not a stablecoin merely because it uses a token representation. A stablecoin has its own issuer, backing and redemption structure. Wholesale central-bank money is a liability of the central bank and is generally available only to eligible institutions. Retail central-bank digital currency, e-money and commercial-bank deposits are also distinct claims.

For each instrument, the decisive questions are who owes the money, who may hold it, how it is redeemed, what legal protections apply and which settlement asset anchors it at par. Commercial-bank and central-bank money may operate on one platform without becoming the same liability.

Architecture and control

Tokenisation represents claims or assets on a programmable platform. Distributed-ledger technology is one possible architecture, but a shared ledger can remain permissioned and centrally governed. Participant admission, identity, validators, smart contracts, data access, interoperability, compliance rules, upgrades and liquidity are separate control points.

Proposed benefits include atomic exchange, conditional execution, shared records and reduced reconciliation. Atomic technical execution is not identical to legal settlement finality. Tokenisation also does not remove liquidity, credit, legal, operational or insolvency risk. Efficiency can concentrate dependencies or remove timing buffers that previously absorbed shocks.

Deployment ladder

The regulated liability network study tested a theoretical wholesale payments design in simulated scenarios. It was a proof of concept, not a Federal Reserve production service.

Project Agorá connects tokenised commercial-bank deposits with wholesale central-bank money for cross-border payments. On 27 May 2026, the Bank for International Settlements reported a completed prototype and planned real-value testing, not a finished product. Project mBridge conducted a real-value pilot in 2022, reached minimum viable product stage in 2024 and was then handed to its project partners. Those milestones do not establish general availability, scale or use to evade sanctions.

Every project should therefore be labelled as concept, proof of concept, prototype, pilot, limited live operation or production infrastructure. Technical feasibility does not establish legal readiness, adoption, scalability or strategic effect.

Conditional statecraft relevance

Shared settlement platforms can change who controls access, identity, compliance logic, standards and the settlement asset. States may use those levers to build resilient payment channels, influence cross-border standards or preserve monetary sovereignty. The same architecture could fragment markets, accelerate capital flows or change currency-substitution risks if adoption scales.

These remain prospective pathways unless a documented rule, transaction or campaign identifies a strategic target and purpose. Embedded compliance supports rule execution only to the extent that the platform has the relevant data, jurisdiction, governance and override arrangements. It does not automatically enforce every sanctions regime.

Governance and safeguards

A complete assessment identifies the central bank, issuing bank, platform operator, financial-market infrastructure and eligible customer. It then tests legal ownership, redemption, finality, liquidity, privacy, data access, operational resilience and default management. The appropriate policy response depends on the liability and governance structure, not on the use of a ledger label.

See also

[Digital identity and conditional-payment controls](digital-identity-and-programmable-money-controls.md) | [Cross-chain bridges and decentralised-finance protocols](cross-chain-bridges-and-defi-protocols.md)

Sources

1. Inaki Aldasoro, Sebastian Doerr, Leonardo Gambacorta, Rodney Garratt and Priscilla Koo Wilkens, 'The tokenisation continuum', Bank for International Settlements Bulletin No. 72, 11 April 2023. https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull72.htm
2. Rodney Garratt and Hyun Song Shin, 'Stablecoins versus tokenised deposits: implications for the singleness of money', Bank for International Settlements Bulletin No. 73, 11 April 2023. https://www.bis.org/publ/bisbull73.htm
3. Bank for International Settlements, Blueprint for the future monetary system: improving the old, enabling the new, Annual Economic Report 2023, Chapter III, https://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2023e3.htm.
4. Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures, Tokenisation in the context of money and other assets: concepts and implications for central banks (21 October 2024), https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d225.htm.
5. Financial Stability Board, The Financial Stability Implications of Tokenisation (22 October 2024), https://www.fsb.org/2024/10/the-financial-stability-implications-of-tokenisation/.
6. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 'Research Study Examines Feasibility of Theoretical Payments System Designed to Facilitate and Settle Digital Asset Transactions', 6 July 2023. https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/financial-services-and-infrastructure/2023/20230706
7. Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, 'Project Agorá: exploring tokenisation of wholesale cross-border payments', updated 27 May 2026. https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/agora.htm
8. Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub, 'Project mBridge reached minimum viable product stage', updated 11 November 2024. https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/cbdc/mcbdc_bridge.htm
9. Bank of England Prudential Regulation Authority, Innovations in the use by deposit-takers of deposits, e-money and regulated stablecoins (6 November 2023), https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/letter/2023/november/innovations-in-the-use-of-deposits-emoney-and-regulated-stablecoins.pdf.
10. Bank of England, The Bank of England's approach to innovation in money and payments (30 July 2024), https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/paper/2024/dp/the-boes-approach-to-innovation-in-money-and-payments.
11. Tobias Adrian, Tokenized Finance, IMF Note 2026/001 (International Monetary Fund, April 2026). https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/imf-notes/2026/english/insea2026001.pdf