Bank of Montreal joins tokenized‑cash pilots

Bank of Montreal said on March 24, 2026 that it will roll out tokenized cash with Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group and Google Cloud, making it the first bank to use the exchange operator’s cash solution on Google Cloud Universal Ledger. The system is aimed at institutional clients that need money to move outside normal bank hours. (newsroom.bmo.com) The basic idea is simple: a bank customer turns U.S. dollars at Bank of Montreal into a digital instrument that can be used inside a controlled network, instead of wiring cash through slower banking rails. Reuters reported that Bank of Montreal expects near-instant settlement from that setup. (kitco.com) This is not a retail crypto app for consumers buying coffee. Bank of Montreal said the first use is for margined products at Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, where traders have to post collateral to cover potential losses. (newsroom.bmo.com) That matters because futures and other derivatives do not stop creating margin calls just because a bank branch is closed at 6 p.m. Reuters said the push comes as global markets move toward round-the-clock trading and clients want infrastructure that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (kitco.com) Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group and Google Cloud started laying this track a year earlier. On March 25, 2025, the two companies said they were piloting wholesale payments and asset tokenization on Google Cloud Universal Ledger, a private ledger built for financial institutions rather than an open public chain. (marketchameleon.com) Google Cloud Universal Ledger is the plumbing in this story. Google Cloud said in 2025 that the ledger was designed to manage accounts and assets and move them on a permissioned network, which means approved firms can use it and outsiders cannot. (marketchameleon.com) Bank of Montreal is using that plumbing to do something banks care about more than slogans: keeping collateral usable. Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group’s clearing chief, Suzanne Sprague, said tokenized cash at CME Clearing would let firms meet margin requirements and settlement obligations in real time instead of waiting for traditional banking cycles. (newsroom.bmo.com) Bank of Montreal also said this first step sets up a second product: tokenized deposits. Reuters reported that those deposits are meant for payments, treasury movements, and programmable cash uses, which is bank language for money that can move with built-in rules instead of manual back-office steps. (kitco.com) The timing is not immediate. Reuters said Bank of Montreal expects the institutional settlement instrument to launch in the second half of 2026, and it still needs regulatory approval before clients can use it live. (kitco.com) What changed here is who is sitting at the same table. A bank is providing the regulated money, an exchange group is providing the market workflow, and a cloud giant is providing the ledger underneath, which is a much tighter arrangement than the old model of banks sending messages across separate systems and reconciling them later. (newsroom.bmo.com)