BNY Mellon Tests Tokenized Deposits to Facilitate $2.5T Daily Payments

The Bank of New York Mellon Corp. BK is exploring tokenized deposits to accelerate its efforts to modernize its payment network and expand the use of blockchain in global finance. This was reported by a Cryptonews article citing a Bloomberg report.

This move, led by Carl Slabicki, executive platform owner for Treasury Services at BNY Mellon, aims to enable clients to make payments through a blockchain network using tokenized versions of traditional deposits.

The project has been structured to facilitate real-time, instant and global transactions across BK’s international network.

Rationale Behind BNY Mellon’s Move

Tokenized deposits act as a digital representation of customers’ deposits held at a commercial bank. By operating on a Blockchain network, these deposits can be transferred quickly, allowing a real-time settlement of transactions without any delays on intermediaries.

Slabicki stated that tokenized deposits could help “banks overcome legacy technology constraints” through faster and efficient deposit and payment movement across the financial systems.

BNY Mellon’s treasury services division handles nearly $2.5 trillion worth of payments daily. Tokenized deposits can make these payments cheaper, faster and available round-the-clock. 

This move aligns with BK’s broader blockchain strategy. In July, the firm collaborated with Goldman Sachs to use blockchain to maintain a record of customers’ ownership for money market funds. The bank is also part of more than 30 international financial institutions collaborating with Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) on a blockchain-based shared ledger aimed at enabling real-time cross-border payments.

BK’s Price Performance & Zacks Rank

Over the past six months, BK shares have risen 34.8% compared with the industry’s growth of 26.2%.

Currently, BNY Mellon carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Similar Efforts by Other Major Banks

Last month, HSBC Holdings HSBC expanded its tokenized deposit service for corporate clients, enabling them to safely transfer currencies in real-time with instant settlement, thereby supporting cross-border transactions.

This move by HSBC builds upon the successful rollout of the tokenized deposit service for domestic payments in Hong Kong and Singapore earlier this year. The service has been extended to the UK and Luxembourg markets.

Similarly, in August, JPMorgan JPM partnered with Coinbase Global COIN, marking a pivotal step toward mainstream cryptocurrency adoption in the United States.

Customers will soon be able to connect their JPMorgan accounts directly to Coinbase wallets through a secure API, eliminating reliance on third-party aggregators. Starting fall 2025, Chase credit cards will support direct crypto purchases, and by 2026, users will be able to convert Chase Ultimate Rewards points into USDC, marking the first time a major rewards program is linked to a stablecoin.

This collaboration enhances compliance and security by embedding KYC and AML processes directly into JPMorgan’s infrastructure. Bypassing aggregators reduces data privacy risks and offers the bank greater control over fiat-to-crypto flows. The partnership is also pioneering the use of stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits, with JPMorgan piloting its own deposit token on Coinbase’s Base blockchain.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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