HSBC pilots tokenised deposits

HSBC said on April 13 it finished a pilot that moved tokenised bank deposits on the Canton Network, a blockchain built for regulated finance. (finextra.com) In the test, HSBC’s Global Payments Solutions unit simulated issuing, transferring and settling its Tokenised Deposit Service, or TDS, on Canton. The bank said the pilot linked HSBC’s own deposit ledger to an external blockchain network and completed “atomic settlement,” meaning the cash leg and the asset leg finished together or not at all. (finextra.com) HSBC’s tokenised deposits represent ordinary bank money in digital form, with each token backed one-for-one by a deposit at the bank. The service supports United States dollars, euros, British pounds, Hong Kong dollars and Singapore dollars, and HSBC says it can run around the clock with conditional, programmable payments. (business.hsbc.com; coinness.com) The point of the exercise is speed and coordination, not a new currency. Banks are trying to make cash move on the same rails as tokenised bonds, funds and other assets so large trades do not wait for separate payment systems to catch up. (digitalasset.com; thecantonnetwork.com) HSBC’s move extends a project it first put live in Hong Kong on May 22, 2025, when it launched TDS for corporate cash management and named Ant International as its first client. In September 2025, HSBC said it had completed its first United States dollar cross-border TDS transaction between Hong Kong and Singapore for Ant International. (about.hsbc.com.hk; treasurytoday.com) The bank is also widening the service geographically. On April 13, HSBC said TDS became available to eligible corporate and institutional clients in the United States, subject to approvals, documentation and onboarding requirements. (businesswire.com) Canton is drawing other large financial firms that want blockchain features without putting every trade on a fully public ledger. Digital Asset’s white paper describes the network as privacy-preserving and interoperable, and Visa said on March 25 it would join as a “Super Validator” to support bank payment flows onchain. (digitalasset.com; investor.visa.com) That places HSBC inside a wider contest over what digital cash institutions will actually use. Some firms are backing stablecoins, while banks such as HSBC are pushing tokenised deposits that stay inside the regulated banking system and settle against tokenised assets on shared infrastructure. (americanbanker.com; news.bloomberglaw.com) For now, HSBC is still describing the Canton work as a pilot. But the sequence is getting clearer: a Hong Kong launch in 2025, a cross-border transaction later that year, a United States rollout in April 2026, and now a test of whether the same bank money can settle on a broader institutional blockchain network. (about.hsbc.com.hk; treasurytoday.com; businesswire.com; finextra.com)