BNY Mellon Eyes 24/7 Instant Payments with New Tokenized Deposit Plan

Reading Time: < 1 minute

The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) is weighing a plan to let its clients make payments that settle in seconds, any time of day, by using “tokenized deposits” on a blockchain.

This potential new service, reported by Bloomberg, aims to directly tackle the speed and operational constraints of the legacy payment networks that currently dominate global finance.

Carl Slabicki of BNY Mellon stated the effort is a key part of modernizing the bank’s payment offerings. Tokenized deposits would function as digital versions of bank money, allowing for immediate transfer between parties on a decentralized ledger.

This represents a major upgrade for a treasury services unit that handles $2.5 trillion in payments daily, moving them from systems that can be slow and limited by business hours to ones that are always-on and near-instantaneous.

This places BNY Mellon alongside other major banks like JPMorgan and HSBC, which are also piloting their own tokenized deposit services. The industry-wide push, supported by initiatives from Swift, points to a future where cross-border and large-scale corporate payments are as seamless as sending an email.