Franklin Templeton and SWIFT say the future of banking is 24/7 and natively on-chain

Tokenized Money Market Funds and Digital Bank Deposits Move From Pilots to Early Infrastructure, Say Franklin Templeton, SWIFT and Ledger Executives

At Consensus Hong Kong 2026, industry leaders from Franklin Templeton, SWIFT and Ledger outlined how tokenized financial instruments are graduating from experimental pilots to foundational building blocks of next-generation finance. Their message was clear: traditional assets, when issued natively on-chain, can be made faster, cheaper and more accessible without abandoning the stability of existing regulatory and banking frameworks.

Franklin Templeton’s Chetan Karkhanis framed the opportunity in straightforward terms: “Take traditional, existing financial instruments, make them cheaper, better faster, by putting them natively on chain.” The firm has zeroed in on money market funds—a roughly $10 trillion global asset class composed of short-term U.S. Treasuries and repurchase agreements. By issuing fund shares directly on blockchain rails, Franklin Templeton can offer 24/7 liquidity, reduce operational overhead and cut shareholder servicing fees, which often range from five to 15 basis points. The firm’s Benji platform, which has already processed billions in tokenized fund transactions, exemplifies how legacy asset managers are moving beyond theory into production.

From the banking side, SWIFT is exploring how tokenized deposits—digital representations of bank liabilities—could modernize payments without disrupting balance sheets. “You have fiat balances that banks have on their balance sheet… but as they move on the new digital form of value, the tokenized deposits represent these on chain,” said Devendra Verma of SWIFT’s digital assets unit. SWIFT, which connects more than 11,500 financial institutions globally, is building a blockchain-based orchestration layer designed to interoperate seamlessly with central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), tokenized deposits and other regulated digital assets. While 75% of SWIFT payments already reach beneficiaries within 10 minutes, Verma said the ambition is to eliminate cut-off times and holiday delays in favor of “24/7, all time availability.”

Yet adoption remains modest relative to global capital markets. Karkhanis noted that roughly $300 billion in stablecoins and about $40 billion in tokenized Treasuries and other real-world assets are now on-chain—”a drop in the ocean” compared with more than $200 trillion in global wealth. The bottleneck, executives agreed, is less about technology and more about trust, governance and regulatory clarity. “Regulatory clarity is very, very important,” Verma emphasized, pointing to the need for consistent standards around accounting, compliance and balance sheet treatment before institutions scale more aggressively.

Security and governance remain another friction point. “How do we do that securely? With trust, with confidence, is the key question,” said Ledger’s Jean-François Rochet, arguing that managing private keys and institutional controls remains a cultural and technical hurdle. Despite crypto’s origins in disintermediation, the panelists said the future is likely hybrid. “You can have it both ways,” Karkhanis said, suggesting decentralized access and traditional intermediaries will coexist. Some intermediaries may fall away, Rochet added, but those that remain will need to justify their role in a redesigned financial stack.

The consensus from Hong Kong: tokenized money market funds and bank deposits are no longer science projects—they are early-stage infrastructure. The question now is not whether they will scale, but how quickly regulators, banks and asset managers can align on the rules of the road.

Tags: tokenized money market funds, digital bank deposits, Franklin Templeton, SWIFT, Ledger, blockchain payments, central bank digital currencies, CBDCs, real-world assets, tokenized Treasuries, 24/7 liquidity, financial infrastructure, Consensus Hong Kong 2026, blockchain orchestration layer, regulatory clarity, private key security, hybrid finance, decentralized access, institutional adoption

Viral Sentences:

• “Take traditional, existing financial instruments, make them cheaper, better faster, by putting them natively on chain.”
• “A drop in the ocean” compared with more than $200 trillion in global wealth.
• “You can have it both ways”—decentralized access and traditional intermediaries will coexist.
• “How do we do that securely? With trust, with confidence, is the key question.”
• The future is hybrid: some intermediaries may fall away, but those that remain will need to justify their role in a redesigned financial stack.
• Tokenized money market funds and digital bank deposits are graduating from experimental pilots to foundational building blocks of next-generation finance.
• 24/7, all time availability—eliminating cut-off times and holiday delays forever.

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