Franklin Templeton and SWIFT Accelerate Streaming Tokenized Finance

Tokenized money funds and digital bank deposits are moving beyond experimentation to mainstream early-stage financial infrastructure, executives said Wednesday at Consensus Hong Kong 2026. Speakers from Franklin Templeton, SWIFT and Ledger described an industry moving from pilot programs to real-world deployment. Adoption remains low compared to global financial markets, but institutions are increasingly building systems designed for seamless settlement and on-chain access.

SWIFT develops blockchain layer to connect CBDCs and tokenized deposits

For Franklin Templeton, tokenization starts with familiar products. Chetan Karkhanis said tokenization is about taking traditional financial instruments and making them “cheaper, better and faster” by putting them directly on-chain.

The asset manager has focused on the tokenization of money market funds, a roughly $10 trillion market comprised of short-term U.S. Treasuries and repurchase agreements. By issuing fund shares directly on blockchain networks and distributing them via custodial wallets and exchanges, the company aims to provide continuous liquidity.

The transfer of shares on-chain could also reduce operational costsincluding shareholder service fees generally between five and fifteen basis points.

On the payments side, SWIFT is exploring tokenized deposits — digital versions of traditional bank balances. Devendra Verma of SWIFT's digital assets unit said banks would continue to hold deposits in fiat on their balance sheets.

At the same time, they will issue corresponding tokens to represent these on-chain balances. The model, he argued, modernizes payment rails without changing the underlying banking structure.

You have balances in fiat that banks have on their balance sheets… but when they move to the new digital form of value, tokenized deposits represent those on chain.

Devendra Verma

SWIFT, which connects more than 11,500 financial institutions worldwide, is developing a blockchain-based coordination layer capable of linking central bank digital currencies, tokenized deposits and other regulated digital assets.

With around 75% of SWIFT payments already reaching beneficiaries within minutes, Verma said the next goal is to eliminate cut-off times and holiday-related delays, enabling seamless settlement.

Tokenized assets remain a tiny part of the $200 trillion global wealth

Panelists described several key components of this change:

• Issue traditional fund shares directly on public blockchains.
• Represent bank deposits as regulated on-chain liabilities.
• Integrate tokenized assets with existing payment infrastructure.
• Allow 24/7 settlement without modifying bank balance sheets.

Yet tokenized assets represent only a fraction of global wealth. About $300 billion in stablecoins and about $40 billion in tokenized Treasuries and other tokenized real assets currently exist on-chain, Karkhanis noted. Global wealth, on the other hand, exceeds $200 trillion.

Regulation remains a critical constraint. Verma stressed the need for consistent standards governing accounting, compliance and balance sheet processing before institutions expand further. Security and governance pose additional obstacles. Jean-François Rochet of Ledger said that managing institutional keys remains as much a cultural challenge as a technical one.

Despite crypto's origins in disintermediation, speakers agreed that the likely outcome is a hybrid system. Decentralized access may expand, but traditional financial institutions will remain — provided they can redefine and justify their roles in a more programmable financial architecture.