How deposits can harness tokenisation
Remarks by Ms Andréa M Maechler, Deputy General Manager and Acting Head of BIS Innovation Hub, Bank for International Settlements (BIS), at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Singapore, 12 November 2025.
Tokenisation has challenged the way we think about money and promises a major leap in how the financial system functions. Understanding the technology behind tokenisation, together with the opportunities and risks it presents, is crucial. Tokenisation introduces the possibility of creating two distinct worlds: private permissioned platforms, which are regulated and governed by trusted entities, and public permissionless platforms, which operate in open, decentralised environments with limited oversight and greater risks. The latter is largely uncharted territory and will require sound and comprehensive analysis to understand how these different worlds can coexist. For central banks, as guardians of the financial system, the monetary system must keep up with technological advances, and it must do so while maintaining its most precious asset: trust in money. Today, the features that underlie trust in money and financial stability are closely intertwined with the role of deposits. Tomorrow, tokenisation has the potential to carry forward the strengths of a time-tested system into a tokenised programmable world for the benefit of the wider economy.
