UK Banks Successfully Settle Real Deposits on Shared Blockchain in Groundbreaking Pilot

Seven major UK banks have successfully completed real pound sterling transactions on a shared blockchain infrastructure as part of the GBTD pilot. The Great British Tokenised Deposit (GBTD) initiative, developed by Quant, processed two remortgages and a marketplace payment using customer deposits that remained within the regulated system.

The tokenized deposit model aims to grant programmable functions to conventional deposits without abandoning regulatory protections associated with commercial money. In the case of the remortgages, three banks - Barclays, Lloyds, and NatWest - reserved the required amount in the customer's account and released it once the platform received confirmation that the closing condition had been met.

By 2027, the participating banks plan to issue three digital bonds that will integrate tokenized deposits with regulated assets within the same environment. This project aims to connect institutions without replacing their internal banking systems with a single public blockchain, showcasing interoperability between entities with their own accounts and systems as its central achievement.