BNY Mellon Explores Tokenized Deposits to Modernize $2.5T Daily Payments

BNY Mellon is testing bank-issued tokenized deposits that would let clients move funds over blockchain rails, aiming to modernize its payments infrastructure and enable near-instant, 24/7 settlement across its roughly $2.5 trillion-a-day payments operation and $55.8 trillion in assets under custody. The exploratory effort, led by Treasury Services executive Carl Slabicki, is intended to help banks overcome legacy technology constraints, reduce transaction costs and ultimately support faster intra-bank and cross-border transfers, though no timeline was disclosed. The initiative builds on BNY’s recent work in digital-asset infrastructure, including a partnership with Goldman Sachs on tokenized money market funds, and comes amid a broader industry wave of pilots such as JPMorgan’s JPMD, HSBC’s tokenized deposit service, Swift’s shared-ledger prototypes and Europe’s stablecoin efforts. BNY’s leadership has signaled a measured approach — proactive in exploring onchain settlement but not rushing to aggressively solicit crypto deposits.