Barclays, HSBC and Citi collaborate to pilot tokenized deposits in UK

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Barclays, HSBC, and Citibank, along with other UK financial institutions, are collaborating on a trial project to introduce deposit tokens using blockchain technology.

A number of British banks, such as Barclays and Citigroup, are collaborating on a trial for tokenized deposits to improve the monitoring of banking payments. The UK Finance trade association announced this development in a press release on April 15th. The banks are initiating the “UK Regulated Liability Network” exploration phase, employing a “shared ledger” system to simplify cross-border transactions.

“We anticipate that these experiments will offer valuable understanding on how a shared innovation platform can improve customer interactions with advanced payment features and reduce the danger of market division in retail payments.” (Lee Braine, Barclays CTO)

In a Bloomberg article, Quant CEO Gilbert Verdian mentioned that companies taking part in the trial are anticipated to use the platform for approximately two to three years before the technology becomes available to the public. Besides banks like Bloomberg, Mastercard, NatWest, and Nationwide, other payment systems are also contributing to the pilot project.

The experimentation stage, which is set to last until summer 2024, will focus on several key areas. These include determining the advantages for customers and businesses, examining the technical viability, and dealing with the legal aspects related to running a shared ledger system for financial settlements.

GF Securities, an investment bank based in Hong Kong, recently made news by introducing a tokenized commercial paper on the Ethereum blockchain. This marks a significant achievement for the local digital asset industry, even though it’s uncertain if this “shared ledger” will be built upon an existing blockchain network. Elsewhere, other organizations are actively working to incorporate their tokenization services into current products.

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2024-04-16 13:57