Large companies are moving beyond experiments with blockchain-based forms of money, with 88% of respondents in a DBS-commissioned survey reporting that they are either using tokenized money in live operations or testing it in pilots. The findings point to growing interest in faster cash management and cross-border payments, although regulatory, security and integration concerns remain.
Large companies move from pilots to live use
The survey, conducted by EY for DBS, covered 422 business and finance leaders across 11 markets. Respondents represented companies with annual revenue above $500 million, including organizations in the United States, China, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Among those surveyed, 24% said their companies had deployed tokenized money at scale. A further 43% reported limited live use in selected markets, while 21% were running pilots or proofs of concept. The remaining 12% were either still exploring the technology or were not using it.
Tokenized money refers to digital representations of value recorded and transferred using blockchain or related distributed-ledger systems. The category covered by the study includes several instruments rather than one specific product. Stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits and tokenized money market funds can serve different purposes, but all are being assessed as potential tools for moving or managing corporate cash.
According to CoinDesk, stablecoins were the most widely used or planned instrument among respondents, cited by 63%. Tokenized deposits followed at 53%, while tokenized money market funds were identified by 52%.
Faster settlement is a central attraction
The survey suggests that companies are primarily interested in practical improvements to treasury operations and payments. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they had already experienced, or expected within two years, improvements in real-time cross-border payments. Sixty-five percent gave the same response for treasury liquidity management.
Another 72% said they had seen, or expected within two years, better traceability. For finance teams, traceability can make it easier to monitor where funds are moving and to reconcile transactions across different systems. The survey did not indicate that every respondent had already achieved these benefits; its figures combine current experience with expectations over the two-year period.
Tokenized payment systems can be designed to operate continuously and to follow preset conditions. That may help companies move funds outside traditional banking hours or automate certain transactions, although the survey also shows that businesses remain concerned about how these systems fit into existing financial and compliance processes.
The industry is also seeing examples of banks building infrastructure for this activity. DBS launched DBS Token Services in 2024, linking a permissioned blockchain to its payment systems. The service is designed to support round-the-clock settlement and payments governed by predefined conditions.
Citi said at its May investor day that hundreds of clients were using Citi Token Services to move close to $1 billion per day, primarily for liquidity and working-capital management. In September, DBS and Citi completed a dollar payment between Singapore and New York over a weekend using tokenized deposits through the Swift Digital Ledger. DBS said the transaction settled in minutes and enabled the funds to move outside conventional banking hours.
Banks remain important to corporate users
Despite the interest in new forms of money, respondents said they wanted established financial institutions to help organize access to the market. Sixty-four percent said they wanted banks to act as a single access point to the tokenized-money ecosystem. In addition, 63% sought assistance with pilots and integration.
Regulatory uncertainty, security risks and the difficulty of connecting new systems with existing corporate infrastructure were identified as continuing barriers. These concerns are significant for large companies because payment and treasury systems must operate alongside compliance controls, reporting processes and multiple banking relationships.
“ For companies, fragmentation may add complexities and compliance obligations,” Lim Soon Chong, DBS’s group head of global transaction services, said. He added that the future would be shaped not only by new forms of money and technology, but also by trusted organizations able to coordinate value transfers across multiple networks.
The survey therefore presents tokenized money as an emerging part of corporate finance rather than a replacement for existing banking arrangements. Companies are testing several instruments, while banks are positioning themselves as the providers that can connect those instruments with established payment systems.
Moneyiar market picture
Moneyiar market data as of October 25, 2026, showed the following prices and performance:
- NEAR Protocol (NEAR): $4.6166906773, up 3.36% over 24 hours and down 6.21% over seven days, as of 22:38 +03:30.
- Stable (STABLE): $0.0265498473, down 2.51% over 24 hours and up 10.84% over seven days, as of 22:39 +03:30.
- Monad (MON): $0.0215496181, down 0.49% over 24 hours and up 2.33% over seven days, as of 22:38 +03:30.
- FUNToken (FUN): $0.0089182414, up 1.62% over 24 hours and up 0.08% over seven days, as of 22:39 +03:30.
These market figures cover selected cryptoassets and are separate from the corporate adoption findings in the DBS-EY survey.
