Franklin Templeton and SWIFT Push Forward 24/7 Tokenized Finance

Tokenized money market funds and digital bank deposits are moving beyond experimentation and into early financial infrastructure, executives said Wednesday at Consensus Hong Kong 2026. Speakers from Franklin Templeton, SWIFT and Ledger described an industry shifting from pilot programs to real-world deployment. Adoption remains small relative to global capital markets, but institutions are increasingly building systems designed for round-the-clock settlement and on-chain access.

SWIFT Develops Blockchain Layer to Connect CBDCs and Tokenized Deposits

For Franklin Templeton, tokenization starts with familiar products. Chetan Karkhanis said tokenization is about taking traditional financial instruments and making them “cheaper, better and faster” by putting them directly on-chain.

The asset manager has focused on tokenizing money market funds, a roughly $10 trillion market composed of short-term U.S. Treasuries and repurchase agreements. By issuing fund shares directly on blockchain networks and distributing them through self-custody wallets and exchanges, the firm aims to offer continuous liquidity. 

Moving shares on-chain could also reduce operational costs, including shareholder servicing fees that typically range from five to 15 basis points.

On the payments side, SWIFT is exploring tokenized deposits—digital versions of traditional bank balances. Devendra Verma of SWIFT’s digital assets unit said banks would continue holding fiat deposits on their balance sheets. 

At the same time, they will issue corresponding tokens to represent those balances on-chain. The model, he argued, modernizes payment rails without changing the underlying banking structure.

You have fiat balances that banks have on their balance sheet… but as they move on the new digital form of value, the tokenized deposits represent these on chain. 

Devendra Verma

SWIFT, which connects more than 11,500 financial institutions worldwide, is developing a blockchain-based coordination layer capable of linking central bank digital currencies, tokenized deposits and other regulated digital assets. 

While roughly 75% of SWIFT payments already reach beneficiaries within minutes, Verma said the next objective is to eliminate cut-off times and holiday delays, enabling continuous settlement.

Tokenized Assets Still Tiny Slice of $200T Global Wealth

Panelists outlined several core components of this shift:

• Issuing traditional fund shares directly on public blockchains.
• Representing bank deposits as regulated on-chain liabilities.
• Integrating tokenized assets with existing payment infrastructure.
• Enabling 24/7 settlement without altering bank balance sheets.

Even so, tokenized assets account for only a fraction of global wealth. Roughly $300 billion in stablecoins and about $40 billion in tokenized Treasuries and other real-world assets currently exist on-chain, Karkhanis noted. Global wealth, by contrast, exceeds $200 trillion.

Regulation remains a critical constraint. Verma emphasized the need for consistent standards governing accounting, compliance and balance sheet treatment before institutions scale further. Security and governance present additional hurdles. Jean-François Rochet of Ledger said institutional key management remains as much a cultural challenge as a technical one.

Despite crypto’s origins in disintermediation, speakers agreed the likely outcome is a hybrid system. Decentralized access may expand, but traditional financial institutions will remain—provided they can redefine and justify their roles within a more programmable financial architecture.