Appold Market Watch - Week ending 25 September 2026
Market Update and Industry News - Week Ending 25 September 2026
🔷 BMO, CIBC, National Bank, RBC, Scotiabank and TD have launched a joint initiative to explore Canadian-dollar tokenised deposits, beginning with transfers between institutions before extending to broader digital asset infrastructure. The initiative follows OSFI’s clarification that tokenised deposits hold no distinct legal status from conventional deposits.
Appold view: Regulatory uncertainty around the legal status of tokenised deposits has effectively been reduced and the country’s largest banks are now jointly building the cash infrastructure. The strategic question is no longer about the adoption of tokenisation but about how securities, cash, and existing market infrastructure connect once the banking rail is available.
🔷 Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander have completed their first live customer transactions using tokenised sterling deposits under UK Finance’s Great British Tokenised Deposit initiative, comprising two remortgage completions and a consumer marketplace payment.
Appold view: This is an important progression from proof of concept to real customer money. More significantly, the next phase explicitly links tokenised deposits to digital-asset settlement, creating the cash leg required for institutional securities transactions.
🔷 The Eurosystem SpA has launched Pontes, enabling wholesale tokenised asset transactions to settle directly in central-bank money by connecting DLT platforms to TARGET Services. The European Central Bank intends to invest part of its own funds in tokenised public-sector securities settled through the platform.
Appold view: Evidently, the ECB is now becoming a user rather than simply an observer of tokenised markets. As trading and settlement infrastructure converge, established exchanges and custodians will need to determine where they sit within the new architecture rather than treating blockchain as a parallel market.
🔷 IBM has integrated its Digital Asset Haven platform with Swift’s blockchain-based shared ledger, enabling financial institutions to instruct tokenised-deposit transactions via existing ISO 20022 messaging. The ledger now supports an initial tokenised-deposit programme involving 17 participating banks.
Appold view: The significance is in the abstraction of blockchain from existing banking workflows. Institutions can use familiar Swift messaging and operational processes while accessing tokenised infrastructure underneath, substantially lowering the integration hurdle. This reinforces the growing trend that successful institutional blockchain adoption is increasingly being embedded into existing financial infrastructure rather than requiring institutions to replace it.
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