Tokenized deposits gain enterprise case in treasury, repo and payments

Tokenized deposits are moving beyond pilots, with at least five production examples now in operation, according to Ravi Chamria, chief executive of Zeeve Inc. Citing Dataintelo’s Tokenized Deposits Market Report from April 2026, Chamria said the market was valued at $4.8 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $38.6 billion by 2034, implying compound annual growth of 26.2 percent.

Chamria identified multinational corporate treasury management, atomic securities settlement and 24/7 cross-border business payments as the enterprise applications with the strongest business case. He said these use cases address trapped liquidity, manual reconciliation and counterparty risk while relying largely on existing bank deposit structures.

Corporate liquidity is the near-term case

Chamria said corporate liquidity management has the clearest near-term path because a bank can start inside its own institution rather than waiting for other banks to join a network. Large companies often hold cash across many subsidiaries, currencies, accounts and legal entities, with some units carrying surplus funds while others need short-term liquidity.

In the model described by Chamria, a bank represents eligible deposit balances on a private ledger while its core systems continue to maintain the underlying accounts. Approved entities within a corporate group can then move tokenized balances at any time, allowing pooling and sweeping to run under rules set by the treasurer rather than through batch-based standing instructions.

Chamria said tokenized deposits retain the status of commercial bank deposits and can continue earning interest, because regulators in the US and EU treat them as conventional deposits. He cited Boston Consulting Group estimates that moving 5 percent of global corporate transaction balances into tokenized deposits could create $250 billion to $500 billion in outstanding balances.

The limitation, he said, comes when a company holds accounts across multiple banks. A tokenized balance issued inside one bank does not automatically transfer into another bank’s system, leaving interoperability or shared bank networks as a longer-term requirement.

Repo and securities financing offer scale

Chamria ranked repo, securities financing and collateral use cases next because of market size, citing more than $12 trillion in daily outstanding volume in the US repo market. In repo, risk arises when the securities leg and cash leg settle at different times, leaving an exposure window and tying up collateral.

Tokenized deposits can be used as the cash leg in an atomic settlement process, where cash and securities transfer at the same moment or the transaction does not complete. Chamria said J.P. Morgan’s intraday repo solution uses blockchain deposit accounts as tokenized cash, clears more than $1 billion a day and processed more than $430 billion in repo on its Onyx platform within two years of launch.

He also said designs must address cash usage and legal finality. Gross atomic settlement can require more liquidity than netted processes if each trade settles separately, while rulebooks must define when a payment obligation is legally discharged.

Cross-border payments depend on networks

Cross-border settlement carries a large operational problem but depends on coordination beyond any single bank, Chamria said. He cited industry costs of $120 billion in 2020 and average settlement times of two to three days.

Under correspondent banking, instructions pass through intermediaries while funds move step by step. Chamria said deposit tokens can combine value and instruction on a shared ledger, enabling direct settlement between participating banks, with compliance checks before value moves and reduced need for nostro prefunding.

The main design issue is fungibility. A token issued by one bank is a claim on that bank and is not automatically equivalent to another bank’s token. Chamria said networks need mechanisms to keep different bank liabilities at par, citing Partior’s live permissioned consortium and Project Agorá’s work on commercial bank deposits and wholesale central bank money.

B2B payments and trade finance need integration

Chamria ranked domestic B2B payments and trade finance fourth because developed markets already have fast domestic payment rails, making the larger opportunity the processes around payments. Tokenized deposits can attach conditions to funds, such as invoice validation, delivery milestones or payment against a specific invoice.

He cited more than $35 trillion in annual US domestic B2B payments and BCG estimates that 1 percent to 3 percent penetration could create a $1 billion to $5 billion revenue pool for banks that capture it. In trade finance, he said electronic bills of lading and other transferable records could link title transfer and payment, supported by frameworks such as the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records.

Chamria said these use cases require trusted data on goods, liability rules for incorrect inputs, human dispute processes, ERP integration and legal recognition of digital documents across jurisdictions. He also said privacy will become a central infrastructure issue as tokenized deposit networks grow, with banks needing to protect client flows, pricing and positions on shared ledgers.

This story draws on original reporting from Finextra Research.