Before 2027, Look Behind The Token

Stablecoins and tokenised assets are moving into mainstream banking, though not in the form once envisaged by the crypto industry. Banks are using digital ledgers to move deposits, settle payments and service investment products, while central banks are building ways to settle tokenised securities in conventional money. Here is what changed in 2026, where the technology has found a role, where its limits are showing and what private-wealth clients need to know before 2027.

Banks spent years demonstrating that money and securities could move on distributed ledgers. In 2026 several began using them in live transactions. Lloyds Banking Group, for example, completed payments in Swiss francs, euros and sterling under Project Agorá, the wholesale-payments project run by the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance. It later used stablecoins to settle US$750’000 of obligations with Visa during a seven-day trial, including payments outside normal banking hours. Swift has 17 banks preparing live tokenised-deposit pilots, while the European Central Bank has opened its settlement infrastructure to tokenised securities.

These projects deal with familiar banking work. Money has to move between institutions, securities have to change ownership and the cash side of a trade has to arrive when the asset does. Distributed ledgers are beginning to handle parts of that process inside the existing financial system.

Banks Are Testing More Than One Form Of Digital Cash

Swift and Project Agorá are working mainly with tokenised commercial-bank deposits, preserving the existing relationship between banks and their customers. Stablecoin trials such as Lloyds and Visa take another route, using privately issued tokens that can move outside conventional banking hours.

The choice affects who stands behind the money, how it is redeemed and which balance sheet carries the claim. The BIS has favoured tokenised deposits for the core monetary system because commercial banks remain liable for the deposits while final interbank settlement stays anchored in central-bank money.

Stablecoins appeal where operating hours and cross-border transfers are more important than fitting neatly into the existing deposit system. Lloyds and Visa used them to settle obligations over a weekend, when conventional correspondent-banking channels are less flexible. Banks are likely to keep testing both models because they solve different operational problems.

Settlement Is Where Much Of The Work Is Happening

Tokenising a bond or fund unit changes little if payment still passes through a separate chain of systems. The Eurosystem began addressing that problem in September with Pontes, which connects distributed-ledger platforms to its TARGET infrastructure and allows wholesale tokenised assets to settle in central-bank money. Deutsche Bank, Santander, the European Investment Bank and several German and Spanish banks were among the first institutions to connect.

Pontes keeps the ECB at the centre of the cash leg even when the security sits on a distributed ledger. Project Agorá is working on a related problem across currencies, linking foreign-exchange transactions, payments and settlement rather than sending each leg through a separate system.

Lloyds’s CHF, EUR and GBP transactions provided one live test of that model. The bank was not launching a new asset class. It was testing whether existing financial transactions could move with fewer hand-offs between institutions and systems. Banks are looking for shorter settlement chains, fewer duplicated records and less reconciliation.

Wealth Clients Are More Likely To Meet Tokenisation In Funds

Fidelity International launched its first tokenised product in 2026 using infrastructure supplied by Zurich-based Sygnum. The fund register is maintained on-chain and investors can subscribe or redeem using stablecoins outside normal banking hours. The investment itself remains regulated, yield-bearing dollar liquidity.

Tokenisation changes the machinery around the fund rather than its investment strategy. Units can be recorded and transferred digitally, subscriptions and redemptions can run through linked infrastructure and payment can take place alongside the change in ownership.

PwC Switzerland estimates that the tokenised-asset market grew from US$5.7 billion in early 2025 to more than US$30 billion by mid-2026. Tokenised money-market funds holding US Treasuries account for almost half of the total, while real estate, private credit and private equity remain much smaller.

Money-market funds have gained traction partly because the underlying assets are already liquid and easy to value. Recording a private-equity holding on a blockchain does not create a buyer for it. Tokenisation can streamline administration, but it does not create demand where none exists.

Switzerland Is Further Ahead In Custody

PwC surveyed 25 Swiss financial institutions in 2026 and found that 68 percent already offered cryptocurrency services. Custody and trading were available at 64 percent, while only 12 percent offered tokenised assets and another 24 percent planned to do so. Stablecoin and settlement services were available at 20 percent.

FINMA has focused on what happens when custody fails. Its January guidance said that Swiss institutions outsourcing crypto-based custody abroad remain responsible for ensuring that client assets are protected and do not fall into the foreign custodian’s bankruptcy estate.

The blockchain record is only one part of ownership. A custodian may hold the credentials needed to transfer an asset even when the client remains the legal owner, so a failure at the custodian or technology provider still leaves questions about segregation, recovery and enforceable title outside the ledger itself. Tokenised funds raise the same problem. Family offices need a clear record of who owns the asset, who controls access to it, which institution holds it in custody and what happens if one of those firms fails.

Banks Are Still In The Middle

Swift, Visa, Lloyds, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Santander and the ECB are among the institutions building or testing tokenised payment and settlement systems. Distributed ledgers have not removed the banks and custodians that early crypto advocates expected to disappear.

Tokenised deposits still leave the client with a claim on the bank, while central banks are working to connect tokenised securities to central-bank money. Asset managers still decide what a fund owns, and custodians and administrators retain their existing legal duties to investors. What changes is the way records, settlement and transfers move between those institutions.

Stablecoins run across several public blockchains, while banks usually issue tokenised deposits on restricted networks. Moving an asset from one system to another still requires conversion, a technical bridge or another intermediary because the networks do not connect automatically.

Swift and the Eurosystem are building links between new ledgers and payment systems already used by banks. Conventional and tokenised infrastructure will operate alongside each other for years. Pontes is due to add more functions gradually, with fuller implementation expected by 2028.

Most Swiss institutions in PwC’s survey still have no tokenised-asset product planned, even though 80 percent expect stablecoins and central-bank digital currencies to rank among the main developments over the next three to five years.

Tokenisation Does Not Change The Asset

Putting a private-equity holding on a blockchain does not make it easier to sell if there is no buyer. A stablecoin still relies on its issuer to hold sufficient reserves and honour redemptions, while faster settlement does nothing to improve the credit quality of a bond. Blockchain records may change how ownership is recorded, but they do not remove legal disputes over the asset.

Banks are instead replacing individual pieces of existing infrastructure where they see a financial or operational gain: cross-border payments, settlement, custody, fund registers and selected investment products. Tokenisation changes how the investment is recorded and transferred, not the investment case itself.

Before 2027, Look Behind The Token

The legal claim changes depending on whether the holder owns a tokenised bank deposit, a stablecoin or a tokenised fund unit. 

Private banks and family offices need to know who issued the money, who owns the underlying asset, where it is held, how settlement works, how the position is converted back into ordinary bank money and credited to the client, and who is responsible if any part of that process fails.

Clients may encounter more tokenised infrastructure in 2027 without seeing much change on their screens. A familiar fund can move its ownership register on-chain. A payment can settle outside banking hours. A deposit can move through a tokenised network while appearing as an ordinary cash balance.

What wealthy clients actually hold depends on the issuer, the legal claim, the custodian and the settlement route, not on whether the asset sits on a blockchain.

Settlement
The final transfer of money and assets after a trade. Agreeing a transaction and completing it are separate events.

Tokenised Deposit
A conventional bank deposit recorded and transferred on a programmable ledger. The customer retains a claim on the bank.

Stablecoin
A privately issued digital token designed to maintain a fixed value, usually against a currency such as the US dollar. Its value depends on the issuer’s reserves and redemption arrangements.

Central-Bank Money
Money issued by a central bank and used by commercial banks for final settlement. It avoids reliance on another commercial bank for final payment.

Tokenised Asset
A security, fund unit or other financial asset whose ownership is represented on a digital ledger. Tokenisation changes how ownership is recorded and transferred, not necessarily the economics of the investment.

Atomic Settlement
A transaction in which payment and the asset transfer together. Either both sides settle or neither does.

Permissioned Network
A distributed ledger restricted to approved participants such as regulated banks and financial institutions.

Interoperability
The ability of different banks, ledgers and payment systems to exchange assets and money with one another. An asset issued on one network does not automatically move onto another.

Digital Custody
Safekeeping of tokenised or crypto-based assets, including control of the credentials needed to transfer them. Technical control, legal ownership and insolvency protection remain separate issues.