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The New Kids on the Block(chain): Banks

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8 November 2023
Alenka Grealish

In contrast to the smouldering crypto speculative market, Celent observes a vibrant landscape of new kids on the block, banks. Harkening back to the original vision of blockchain and digital assets—providing the Internet of value—banks are forging ahead with pragmatic use cases in the areas of wholesale payments, intrabank/company transfers, and cross-border payments.

Signalling the vibrancy are:

  • JPMorgan, an early mover*, continues to scale use cases. It recently announced that JPM Coin (a permissioned, blockchain-based payments rail and account ledger for clients) handles $1 billion worth of transactions daily.
    *Launched a blockchain in 2016 (Quorum, now maintained by ConsenSys) and a separate business unit, Onyx, in Oct. 2020.
  • SG FORGE (Societe General) launched the EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), a stablecoin, in April 2023. In July 2023, SG FORGE obtained its regulatory license approval as a Digital Asset Service Provider, a landmark first.
  • Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions announced at Sibos 2023 that it is piloting Citi Token Services, leveraging blockchain and smart contract technologies to enhance digital asset solutions for institutional clients. Two use cases are being piloted:trade finance (e.g., a collaboration with Maersk and a canal authority to digitize solutions that act like bank guarantees and letters of credit) and cash management, allowing clients to transfer liquidity between Citi branches 24/7.
  • Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered announced in late October that they are testing the Universal Digital Payments Network (UDPN), a global messaging network supporting government-regulated digital money (i.e., regulated stablecoins and CBDCs). It runs on a permissioned blockchain network whose validator nodes are run by an alliance of banks*, other financial institutions, and consulting firms.
    *Amongst the named are HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Akbank, Standard Chartered, and The Bank of East Asia.
  • Banks exploring a US and UK Regulated Liability Network. An RLN’s objective is to be a financial market infrastructure that is multi-asset (and liability), always-on, and programmable and contains digital representations of central bank, commercial bank, and regulated non-bank issuer liabilities with final settlement in sovereign currencies. Importantly, an RLN exists to enable interoperability of digital assets regardless of types (e.g., CBDCs, deposit tokens, and regulated stablecoins).

    In the US, bank participants include Citi, BNY Mellon, Wells Fargo, HSBC, PNC Bank, TD Bank, Truist, and U.S. Bank) along with Mastercard. Citi has been a thought leader in developing the RLN concept.

    In the UK, banks have not yet been named but JPMorgan mentioned its participation at Sibos 2023.
  • Banks active in the USDF Consortium. The consortium isbuilding a private, permissioned blockchain-based infrastructure to operate USDF payments (tokenized deposits), an alternative to stablecoins and retail CBDCs. They aspire to achieve regulatory approval (e.g., FDIC).

For further discussion, see Celent report, Blockchain in Action in Payments and Transaction Banking: Spotlight on Frontrunners.