Commercial bank money holds the
key to a safer tokenized economy
“[The increasingly important use of
DLT] requires a new form of money —
tokenised commercial bank money
— which will enable efficient, fully digital
handling of payment transactions.”
“The goal [of tokenizing deposits] is the
additional creation of programmable
money that could be used within the
framework of smart contracts, which in
turn permits for more efficient transactions
and refined payment controls.
Depending on the design and structure
of the tokenised deposits, bank
depositors could have the fungibility
between deposits and digital asset
tokens within the DLT based network
and its participating commercial banks.
For the purpose of the [Government
vouchers] pilot, DBS Bank issued digital
SGD in the form of tokenised deposits.”
“[Tokenized deposits] would enable peerto-peer settlement and make depository
institutions’ money programmable and
usable in smart contracts and other
blockchain applications. Despite the
novel technology, in legal and economic
terms, an on-chain tokenised bank deposit
would be identical to a traditional offchain deposit.
We believe that the market will likely
move away from e-money tokens
toward tokenized commercial bank
deposits as the preferred form of onchain money. On-chain deposits, being
economically and legally equivalent to
off-chain deposits, can be expected to fall
under and benefit from existing deposit
insurance schemes. [They] may qualify
as legal tender in some jurisdictions and
are likely to function as such in practice.
Banks have access to the central bank
as lender-of-last-resort, widening the
scope of assets in which token holders’
funds can be invested while maintaining
liquidity requirements.”
