Large businesses across the globe are increasingly integrating tokenized money instruments into their financial operations to optimize cash management, enhance liquidity, and streamline cross-border payments. According to a comprehensive global study commissioned by Singapore-based DBS Bank and conducted by professional services firm EY, a striking 88% of surveyed enterprise leaders reported that their organizations are either actively engaged in live deployments or running ongoing pilots involving tokenized financial instruments.
The research, which polled 422 senior business and finance executives across 11 major global markets—including the United States, China, Germany, and the United Kingdom—focuses exclusively on organizations with annual revenues exceeding $500 million. The findings underscore a fundamental evolution in corporate treasury management, as traditional corporate
finance increasingly intersects with blockchain-based digital assets and programmable money infrastructure.
Among the respondents, the transition toward these advanced technologies varies by implementation stage. The survey revealed that 24% of participating companies have already deployed tokenized money solutions at scale across their operations. Meanwhile, 43% reported limited live use in selected regional markets, and another 21% are currently running active pilots or proofs of concept. Only a small minority of 12% indicated they are merely exploring the technology or not using it at all, signaling that institutional adoption has moved well past the theoretical phase and into practical enterprise application.
When examining the specific financial instruments driving this widespread transformation, stablecoins have emerged as the clear frontrunner. The study found that stablecoins lead the pack at 63%, representing the proportion of respondents who are either currently utilizing them or actively planning to adopt them in their financial workflows. Following closely behind are tokenized deposits, which are utilized or planned by 53% of surveyed organizations, and tokenized money market funds, coming in at 52%.
This diversified preference highlights corporate appetite for multiple digital asset forms, ranging from privately issued digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies to bank-backed digital deposits and tokenized yield-generating instruments. Business leaders are turning to these digital assets primarily to address longstanding inefficiencies in legacy financial systems, most notably slow settlement times and high operational friction associated with international wire transfers and liquidity management.
The anticipated operational advantages driving these deployments are significant. Faster payments rank among the primary benefits realized by enterprise users. Approximately 71% of respondents stated that they have either already experienced measurable improvements in real-time cross-border payments or fully expect to achieve such enhancements within the next two years. Furthermore, 72% of participants reported seeing or anticipating superior traceability in their transaction flows over the same timeframe, while 65% noted meaningful improvements in treasury liquidity management.
Despite the high levels of enthusiasm and active implementation, enterprise adoption is not without its hurdles. The survey highlights that regulatory uncertainty, persistent security risks, and complex technological integration remain formidable obstacles for corporate treasurers looking to scale their digital asset initiatives. Because the digital asset landscape remains fragmented across various blockchains and proprietary networks, navigating compliance obligations and technical hurdles has become a primary concern for finance chiefs.
To mitigate these challenges, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents expressed a strong desire for traditional commercial banks to step in as unified facilitators. Specifically, 64% of corporate leaders want banks to provide a single point of access to the broader tokenized money ecosystem, while 63% are actively seeking institutional support with pilot programs and technical integration.
Lim Soon Chong, DBS’s group head of global transaction services, emphasized the strategic importance of trusted financial intermediaries in navigating this new landscape. For companies, market fragmentation can add layers of operational complexity and compliance obligations, Lim noted, pointing out that the future of corporate finance will be defined not only by new forms of money and technology, but also by trusted institutional anchors capable of orchestrating the movement of value seamlessly across multiple digital networks.
Financial institutions are increasingly positioning themselves to meet this demand by developing proprietary blockchain infrastructure. DBS itself offers the technological backbone that underpins much of the survey’s context. The Singaporean bank launched DBS Token Services in 2024, a specialized offering designed to connect its permissioned blockchain directly with traditional payment systems, thereby supporting round-the-clock settlement and automated payments governed by preset, programmatic conditions.
Other major global financial institutions are reporting similarly robust metrics regarding corporate usage of tokenized solutions. During its investor day presentation, Citi revealed that hundreds of corporate clients were moving close to $1 billion daily through Citi Token Services, utilizing the institutional platform primarily to optimize liquidity management and working capital on a real-time basis.
Further demonstrating the growing interoperability between traditional banking and distributed ledger technology, DBS and Citi completed a pioneering cross-border transaction in September. The two financial giants successfully executed a weekend U.S. dollar payment between Singapore and New York using tokenized deposits routed through the Swift Digital Ledger. DBS reported that the transaction settled in a matter of minutes, successfully bypassing the operating hours limitations of traditional banking infrastructure and proving that multi-bank, cross-border tokenized settlements are viable for everyday corporate treasury operations.
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