SWIFT Puts Tokenized Deposits Into Live Testing With 17 Banks

SWIFT has moved its distributed ledger platform from development into active deployment, signing up 17 banks for live testing of tokenized deposit transfers. The network said the shared ledger will let banks process cross-border payments continuously, including overnight and on weekends, while keeping final settlement inside established payment rails.

The trial covers institutions across six continents. Participants include HSBC, Citi, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ, DBS, Standard Chartered, BNY, Wells Fargo, Lloyds Bank, OCBC, UOB, MUFG, Mashreq, FAB, FirstRand and Itaú Unibanco. Each will run real transactions using bank-issued tokenized deposits during the supervised pilot period.

SWIFT built the ledger infrastructure in nine months, working with feedback from international financial organizations. The system connects each bank's proprietary ledger to a shared coordination layer. It preserves existing compliance checks, credit assessments and regulatory controls, the network said. The goal is to speed up transaction settlement without forcing banks to rebuild their back-office compliance architecture.

The trial focuses on international payments. Banks will test how tokenized deposits affect transaction speed, liquidity management and operational integration. SWIFT already routes payments across more than 200 markets and reports that 75% of transactions reach destination banks within 10 minutes. The ledger layer is meant to push that further, especially for the overnight and weekend gaps that slow conventional wire transfers.

This is not the only tokenized deposit initiative in the pipeline. A separate banking consortium is preparing a tokenized deposit network targeting an early 2027 launch. Tokenized securities projects are also expanding inside traditional market infrastructure. SWIFT's trial is notable for its scale and for keeping settlement inside the existing banking system rather than moving it onto a public blockchain.

SWIFT said it plans to expand the ledger's capabilities and access after the initial phase. Future versions could support programmable currency and other regulated digital finance applications. For now, the emphasis is on operational tokenized deposit transfers between banks.

For traders tracking institutional adoption of digital assets, the trial offers a concrete test of whether tokenized deposits can improve settlement speed without creating new operational risk. The participating banks represent a broad cross-section of global finance, which means the results will carry weight beyond any single institution.

MUFG, one of the participants, carries an Alpha Score of 57 out of 100, rated Moderate, in the Financial Services sector. Wells Fargo, also in the pilot, scores 59 out of 100, also Moderate, in Financials. Both scores reflect the sector's current positioning rather than any specific read on the SWIFT trial.

The network also intends to launch a retail payment structure with transparent pricing and full value transmission, aligning with G20 goals for faster, cheaper cross-border payments. Those initiatives target improvements in speed, clarity and reliability across the payment chain.