Bank Negara Malaysia to Pilot Ringgit Stablecoins and Tokenised Deposits in Three 2026 Projects
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RWA.io: Banks Pilot Tokenized Deposits as ECB Builds Tokenized Rails
RWA.io reports European banks are piloting tokenized deposits as the ECB advances infrastructure plans — Pontes is targeted for Q3 2026 and a 12‑month digital euro pilot is slated to begin in H2 2027. Complementary industry moves (Barclays procurement signals, the Bank of England’s RT2 sandbox and BOJ reserve testbeds) show a coordinated, multi‑jurisdictional push to align bank-issued on‑chain money with supervised settlement rails.
Standard Chartered Flags Stablecoins as a Growing Threat to Bank Deposit Bases
Standard Chartered’s analysis warns that expanding dollar-pegged stablecoins could erode material shares of bank deposit bases and compress net interest-margin income, particularly for regional U.S. banks. The paper also highlights how central-bank policy choices — as signalled recently by South Korea’s authorities — and where issuers park reserves will determine whether stablecoins produce domestic deposit outflows or mainly cross-border capital-flow effects.
Barclays Evaluates Blockchain Platform to Run Payments and Deposits
Barclays has begun a vendor information process to test a blockchain ledger for payments, deposit records and tokenized cash, signaling banks are moving from pilots toward procurement. The move sits alongside industry experiments that favour hybrid, bank‑anchored tokenized deposits rather than wholesale ceding of settlement to private stablecoins.
FDIC Bars Deposit Insurance for Stablecoins, Signals Tokenized Deposits May Still Qualify
FDIC Chair Travis Hill said the agency will exclude privately issued stablecoins from federal deposit insurance, including third‑party pass‑through arrangements, while indicating ledger‑represented deposits issued by banks are likely to remain insured. Complementary regulatory moves — notably fresh CFTC guidance for national trust banks and ongoing EU MiCA rules — are beginning to channel public‑use tokens toward bank‑centric designs, intensifying custody concentration and creating cross‑jurisdictional policy divergence.
UK names HSBC and Ashurst to run pilot for tokenised government bonds
The UK Treasury has selected HSBC and law firm Ashurst to lead a trial issuing tokenised gilts inside the Bank of England’s forthcoming sandbox. The work will sit alongside a six-month Bank of England programme starting in spring 2026 that brings roughly 18 firms together to test linked delivery‑versus‑payment and payment‑versus‑payment flows connecting the bank’s RT2 ledger to external distributed-ledger systems, with the aim of assessing settlement finality, interoperability and operational gains.
Sony Bank Pursues Direct Deposit-Rail Link to JPYC Stablecoin
Sony Bank and JPYC opened an exploratory MOU to test direct integration of a yen-pegged stablecoin with bank deposit rails, aiming to enable near-instant purchases from customer accounts. The agreement leverages BlockBloom for design work and follows Japan’s updated Payment Services Act; JPYC also announced a ¥1.78 billion (~$12M) Series B first close.
Revolut and three firms join FCA stablecoin sandbox
The FCA selected four firms — Revolut, Monee Financial Technologies, ReStabilise and VVTX — from 20 applicants to pilot fiat‑pegged tokens in a supervised sandbox. The move sits alongside Bank of England and Treasury tokenisation experiments and a House of Lords inquiry, meaning sandbox results will feed a multi‑year rulemaking and debate over reserve, custody and settlement arrangements.
Bank of England opens Synchronisation Lab to prototype tokenized-asset settlement with central bank money
The Bank of England has launched a six-month pilot, inviting 18 firms to trial synchronized delivery and payment flows between its future RTGS core (RT2) and external distributed-ledger platforms in a sandbox environment. The program aims to test interoperability, validate design choices for atomic settlement in sterling, and inform whether a live RTGS synchronization capability should be developed.