1. Tokenized cash adoption: what the DBS survey found
Large companies are already moving money through tokenized cash, or testing it, according to a survey commissioned by Singapore's DBS and published on October 28. Of the respondents, 88% reported either live deployments or pilots of tokenized money, which the study uses to improve cash management and cross-border payments. Stablecoins were the most widely used or planned instrument, at 63%.
The report was conducted by EY for DBS and polled 422 business and finance leaders across 11 markets, including the United States, China, Germany and the United Kingdom. Every organization represented has annual revenue above $500 million, so the results describe large corporates rather than small firms or retail users.
Tokenized cash is an umbrella term for digital representations of money that run on blockchain-style networks and can settle at any hour. The survey groups three main forms: stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits and tokenized money market funds. Understanding how each is used, and why companies are choosing among them, is the main value of the findings.
2. How far along are companies in using tokenized money?
The 88% figure covers a range of maturity. The survey found that 24% of respondents have deployed tokenized money at scale, and another 43% have limited live use in selected markets. A further 21% are running pilots or proofs of concept, while the remaining 12% are still exploring the technology or are not using it.
Taken together, 67% of the large companies polled have the technology live in at least some form, which is a far larger share than the cautious public discussion around digital assets might suggest. At the same time, only about a quarter have reached scale, and that gap shows that most programs are still in an early or selective phase.
The distinction matters for interpreting the headline. A company running a limited live program in a handful of markets is a different customer from one that has rebuilt its treasury operations around tokenized cash. The survey indicates that the second group exists but remains a minority.
3. Which tokenized instruments do large businesses prefer?
Stablecoins lead the list of instruments in use or planned, at 63%. Tokenized deposits follow at 53%, and tokenized money market funds are close behind at 52%. The percentages exceed 100% in combination because companies can use more than one instrument.
Each serves a different need. Stablecoins are tokens designed to hold a steady value against a currency such as the US dollar and are often used for payments and settlement across borders. Tokenized deposits are bank deposits represented on a ledger, keeping the legal protections and balance-sheet treatment of a deposit while gaining the speed of a digital network. Tokenized money market funds represent shares in funds that hold short-term securities, offering a yield while remaining easy to transfer.
Risk profiles differ as well. A stablecoin depends on the issuer's reserves and the rules governing redemption, so a company will want to understand who holds the backing assets and under which regulatory regime. A tokenized deposit is a liability of a bank and is typically treated within that bank's existing prudential framework. A tokenized money market fund carries the investment characteristics of the underlying fund, including the possibility of small changes in value.
The fact that the three options are so close in popularity suggests that corporates are not settling on a single winner. Instead, they appear to be matching the instrument to the task: stablecoins where reach and speed matter most, deposits where bank relationships and regulatory comfort are priorities, and funds where earning a return on idle balances is the aim.
4. What benefits do companies expect?
The respondents were asked what they already see or expect to see within two years. A total of 71% pointed to faster, real-time cross-border payments, and 65% cited improvements in treasury liquidity management. A larger 72% said they expect better traceability of payments within the same period.
These expectations track long-standing pain points in corporate finance. Cross-border payments typically pass through several banks and can take days, with fees and limited visibility on where a payment sits at any moment. Treasury teams, meanwhile, often hold cash in many accounts across currencies and time zones, and moving it where it is needed can be slow outside banking hours.
Traceability deserves particular attention. In a conventional correspondent banking chain, a company may know when it sent a payment and when the recipient was credited but have little insight into what happened between those points. A shared ledger can show each stage, which reduces time spent on inquiries and helps finance teams reconcile accounts. That is likely why traceability drew the highest share of expected benefits in the survey, ahead of speed.
Tokenized money promises to compress that timeline by settling around the clock and by recording each transfer on a shared ledger that can be traced from start to finish. The survey results show that large companies are focused on those practical gains rather than on speculative uses of the technology.
5. How should the survey results be read?
A few cautions apply. The study was commissioned by a bank that sells tokenized money services, so its framing naturally highlights demand for the products it offers. The results are also self-reported by business and finance leaders, and the categories are broad: a company that is exploring the technology and one that has moved real volume can both appear in the same headline figure.
The sample is large by the standards of corporate surveys but still limited to 422 respondents from companies above $500 million in annual revenue, spread over 11 markets. That composition is helpful for understanding what big multinationals plan to do, yet it says little about mid-sized firms, where treasury teams are smaller and the economics of a pilot can look different.
Even so, the pattern of answers is consistent. Respondents want faster payments, better visibility and more efficient use of cash, and they want their existing banks to guide them. Those preferences align with the way banks themselves are positioning their tokenization offerings, which suggests that supply and demand are moving in the same direction.
6. What obstacles stand in the way?
The respondents also identified barriers. Regulatory uncertainty, security risks and difficulty integrating the technology with existing systems all remain obstacles to wider use. These are familiar concerns for any large organization adopting new financial infrastructure, but they are sharper when the technology spans several jurisdictions with different rules.
Companies are also asking their banks for help. Nearly two-thirds, or 64%, want banks to act as a single access point to the tokenized money ecosystem, and 63% say they need support with pilots and integration. The preference for a single gateway reflects the risk of a fragmented market in which a company would otherwise have to manage separate relationships with multiple networks, issuers and technology providers.
Lim Soon Chong, DBS's group head of global transaction services, said fragmentation could add complexity and compliance obligations for companies. He added that trusted institutions that coordinate the movement of value across networks will be the ones that shape the future of the sector. As the commissioning bank, DBS has an evident interest in that conclusion, which readers should keep in mind when weighing the findings.
7. How are banks like DBS and Citi responding?
DBS launched DBS Token Services in 2024. The offering connects the bank's permissioned blockchain with its payment systems, enabling round-the-clock settlement and payments that execute automatically when set conditions are met. A permissioned blockchain restricts participation to approved parties, which can make it easier for a bank to meet compliance requirements.
Other large banks are moving in the same direction. Citi said at its investor day in May that hundreds of clients are moving close to $1 billion every day through Citi Token Services, mainly for liquidity and working capital. That figure gives a sense of the scale that bank-run tokenized cash systems are already reaching in practice.
In September, DBS and Citi completed a weekend US dollar payment between Singapore and New York using tokenized deposits over the Swift Digital Ledger. DBS said the transfer settled within minutes, outside normal banking hours, which is the type of outcome corporates say they are looking for.
8. What comes next for tokenized money?
The survey points toward continued expansion over the next two years, with a majority of respondents expecting tangible improvements in payments speed, traceability and liquidity management. The key variables will be regulatory clarity, the ease of connecting tokenized systems to corporate treasury platforms, and whether banks can deliver the single access point that so many respondents want.
For treasurers, the immediate questions are practical ones: which instrument fits each use, which bank can provide access to several networks at once, and how to satisfy auditors and regulators that the controls around a new payment channel are sound. Answers to those questions, more than the technology itself, will determine how fast pilots turn into routine operations.
No specific launch dates or deadlines come from the report itself. Its significance lies in the picture it offers of corporate behavior: large companies are no longer treating tokenized cash as a distant prospect but as an operational tool they are testing and, in a sizable share of cases, running in production.
Whether that momentum continues will depend on how well the banks that coordinate these networks address the concerns respondents raised. If they can reduce fragmentation and simplify integration, the current wave of pilots could convert into broader deployments across the 11 markets covered by the study and beyond.