Canada's Big Six Banks Join Forces to Develop Tokenized Deposits
Canada's Big Six banks are working together to develop tokenized deposits as part of an initiative to keep pace with global developments in digital money.
The tokenized deposits will be digital representations of traditional bank deposits, recorded on a blockchain or distributed ledger.
Royal Bank of Canada, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and National Bank of Canada announced the initiative in a joint press release Tuesday.
The project's first phase will involve moving tokenized deposits denominated in Canadian dollars between financial institutions, with the goal of speeding up bank-to-bank settlements using a shared blockchain.
According to Todd Roberts, senior partner at Deloitte Canada, this technology can efficiently settle transactions between banks.
The banks' longer-term goal is to connect with other emerging digital assets initiatives, but they did not specify which ones.