Banking Giants Are Gearing up for Digital Assets and Tokenized Money via Tokenized Deposits

Banks in the U.S. and Europe are recalibrating strategy, pushing Tokenized deposits, custody services, and onchain settlement from experimentation to tools designed for real institutional use.

Major banks on both sides of the Atlantic are racing to bring digital assets closer to the center of their businesses. Institutions including Bank of New York Mellon, JPMorgan, Barclays, and Standard Chartered have recently launched or expanded live services tied to tokenized deposits, onchain settlement, custody, and trading.

Executives say the push is driven by institutional client demand for faster payments, improved collateral mobility, and around-the-clock settlement, alongside regulatory clarity following the passage of the U.S. GENIUS Act. BNY Mellon CEO Robin Vince recently described digital assets and tokenization as a “megatrend” the bank is actively investing in, noting that regulation has shifted from a constraint to a tailwind.

Divergent Paths on a Shared Roadmap for Tokenized Deposits

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BNY Mellon, custodian of $57.8 trillion in assets, activated a tokenized deposit service for institutional clients on January 9. Initial clients include Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and Citadel Securities, according to a Bloomberg report. Carolyn Weinberg, the bank’s chief product and innovation officer, said the effort is focused on connecting traditional banking infrastructure with emerging digital rails in a form institutions trust.

At the same time, JPMorgan Chase is deploying its deposit token across multiple blockchain networks. Its Kinexys division launched JPM Coin on the Canton Network on January 7, following a November 2025 deployment on Base.

JPM Coin is a deposit token representing U.S. dollar deposits held at the bank. The Canton Network is supported by Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Börse, among other financial players.

Meanwhile, Barclays has opted for infrastructure exposure rather than issuing its own token. The British lender acquired a stake in U.S.-based stablecoin settlement startup Ubyx, Reuters reported on Jan. 7, marking its first investment in a stablecoin-focused company. Barclays did not disclose the size of the investment.

Ubyx operates a clearing system designed to reconcile transactions across multiple stablecoin issuers and raised $10 million in a 2025 seed round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Founders Fund, and VanEck. Barclays said the investment aligns with its strategy to develop tokenized money within the regulatory perimeter, according to Reuters. The bank joined a separate 10 bank consortium in October to explore a regulated stablecoin pegged to a basket of G7 currencies.

Standard Chartered is preparing a cryptocurrency prime brokerage service, Bloomberg reported on January 12, while Morgan Stanley filed S-1 registration statements with the SEC for spot Bitcoin and Solana ETFs on January 6. It filed for a spot Ethereum ETF the following day. The firm oversees approximately $6.4 trillion in assets under management.

U.S. spot crypto ETF trading volume has exceeded $2 trillion, according to SoSoValue data, with spot Bitcoin ETFs alone holding more than $123.5 billion, or about 6.6% of bitcoin’s total market capitalization. Morgan Stanley has also said it plans to launch a proprietary digital wallet and expand crypto trading through its E-Trade platform later this year, according to Barron’s. 

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