In late December 2025, a Reuters analysis highlighted a development that has direct and growing relevance for global trade finance: the accelerating push by major banks towards tokenised deposits as a new settlement layer, even as operational constraints threaten to slow deployment.

The article underscores a shift that trade finance practitioners have been anticipating for some time: while much public attention has focused on retail stablecoins and crypto-assets, banks are quietly advancing a more conservative, but potentially more transformative, approach.

Tokenised deposits are digital representations of commercial bank money issued on permissioned ledgers, remaining fully within the regulated banking system. Unlike stablecoins, they preserve the legal and prudential characteristics of deposits, including AML controls, balance-sheet treatment and central-bank oversight.

For trade finance, this matters because settlement, not credit structure, has increasingly become the weakest link in cross-border transactions. Documentary credits, guarantees and receivables finance have evolved incrementally, but they still rely on correspondent banking rails that are slow, fragmented and liquidity-intensive.

Tokenised deposits offer a route to near-real-time, programmable settlement, particularly suited to trade transactions where payment must align precisely with document compliance or transfer of title.

Reuters notes that several global banks, including JPMorgan Chase, are investing heavily in tokenised payment networks aimed at wholesale and corporate use cases rather than consumer applications. These initiatives are designed to support business-to-business flows, including trade-related payments, by enabling atomic settlement, where cash and assets move simultaneously, reducing settlement risk and intraday liquidity strain.

However, the analysis is notably cautious. The main constraint identified is not regulation or technology, but bank back-office readiness. Legacy systems, fragmented internal data architectures and manual reconciliation processes make it difficult for banks to scale tokenised settlement across multiple products, jurisdictions and currencies. In effect, banks may be building high-speed digital rails that still connect to analogue operational engines.

This tension is particularly relevant for trade finance, which sits at the intersection of multiple systems: payments, collateral management, document handling and compliance screening.

Tokenised settlement can only deliver its full value if it integrates seamlessly with electronic trade documents, digital negotiable instruments and automated compliance workflows. Without that integration, the benefits risk being confined to niche corridors or pilot transactions.

Nevertheless, the direction of travel is unmistakable. The Reuters piece reflects a broader institutional consensus, reinforced by work at the Bank for International Settlements, that future cross-border settlement will rely on regulated, tokenised forms of money, rather than unbacked crypto-assets. For trade finance, this aligns neatly with parallel developments such as electronic bills of lading, MLETR-based legal reforms and AI-driven document examination.

In practical terms, tokenised deposits could enable banks to settle trade obligations instantly once documentary conditions are met, compressing settlement cycles from days to minutes. This has implications for liquidity efficiency, counterparty risk and working-capital optimisation across global supply chains.

Although Reuters rightly highlights the operational hurdles ahead, the emergence of tokenised deposits represents a structural evolution in how trade finance payments may be settled globally. The challenge for banks in 2026 will not be whether tokenised money is viable, but whether their internal infrastructure can keep pace with the ambitions now clearly visible at the institutional level.

Further information: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/tokenisation-boom-will-stall-bank-back-offices-2025-12-30/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of ICC.