Banks are not waiting for perfect rules or perfect timing. Instead, they are quietly testing Web3 rails because the upside is simple: faster settlement, fewer middlemen, and cleaner audit trails.
JPMorgan, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and others are running pilots around tokenized deposits, stablecoin payments, and tokenized assets, and they are doing it in a way that looks boring on the outside but serious on the inside.
This post breaks down five real use cases banks are piloting today, what problem each pilot is trying to fix, and what Web3 teams should watch if they want to build where the money is going.
Quick Answers – Jump to Section
- Tokenized deposits and programmable settlement rails
- Stablecoin rails for cross-border payments
- Tokenized real-world assets for institutional investors
- CBDCs and interbank networks
- Onchain trade finance and supply chain settlement
- Final Thoughts
- Frequently Asked Questions
Tokenized deposits and programmable settlement rails
Tokenized deposits are the least sexy and most bank-friendly version of Web3. Instead of asking a bank to hold USDC, you ask it to issue a token that represents a claim on a real deposit sitting inside the bank. That means the asset behaves like money a compliance team already understands, while the transfer behaves like a blockchain transaction.
JPMorgan and HSBC have both been tied to tokenized deposit work. The point is not to impress people on social media, it is to remove the T plus 2 settlement lag that still makes large parts of capital markets feel like they run on fax machines.
The second-order effect is the part Web3 builders care about. Once deposits become tokens, they can be moved, netted, and settled in ways that are easier to automate. That is where networks like Fnality show up, because they are trying to connect tokenized asset activity to a neutral settlement layer backed by central bank money, which reduces counterparty risk.
If you want a practical framing for why banks care about this kind of plumbing, the stablecoin versus bank money comparison in this breakdown is a useful mental model, because it explains what changes when money becomes programmable without pretending banks will disappear.
Stablecoin rails for cross-border payments
Stablecoin payment pilots are not about memes, they are about time and fees. Cross-border bank transfers can still take days, and the fee stack can be ugly once you add correspondent banks, FX spreads, and compliance checks. Stablecoins shrink that path. In 2025, stablecoins processed around four trillion dollars in transaction volume, and that scale matters because it signals the rails can handle real throughput, not just small test transfers.
Banks are also getting more comfortable because regulation is starting to look less like a fog and more like a map. The U.S. GENIUS Act passed in June 2025 and pushed stablecoin rules toward 1 to 1 backing and qualified custody, while other regions moved in parallel.
For Web3 teams, the question is not whether stablecoins work, it is where the bottlenecks sit in onboarding, compliance, and treasury operations. If you are building content or product around that buyer, the SEO angle is not generic crypto talk, it is very specific intent, and this piece on DAO SEO shows the kind of keyword and structure choices that pull in the right readers without sounding like a brochure.
Tokenized real-world assets for institutional investors
Tokenized real-world assets are where TradFi and Web3 stop arguing and start sharing a spreadsheet. The pitch is simple: take something like a Treasury, a fund unit, or a bond, and represent ownership as a token so it can settle faster, trade in smaller sizes, and plug into automated workflows. The RWA market was estimated around thirty three billion dollars in late 2025, and while that is not the whole bond market, it is large enough to prove the concept is not stuck in a lab.
For banks, the win is not just speed. It is also operational simplicity. If ownership and transfers are recorded onchain, reconciliation becomes easier, corporate actions can be automated, and settlement risk can drop. For Web3 teams, the question people keep asking is practical: which chain, which custody model, and who is liable when something breaks.
If you want to turn that into demand, you need to show up in AI search and LLM answers when those questions are typed in plain English, and this guide on LLM visibility maps the content approach that tends to win those spots.
CBDCs and interbank networks
CBDCs are the biggest pilot category, and also the slowest to ship, because central banks move at the speed of committees. Still, the direction is clear. A large share of central banks are researching or piloting CBDCs, and projects like mBridge have already tested cross-border settlement between multiple jurisdictions. For banks, the attraction is that a wholesale CBDC can act like a shared settlement asset that reduces counterparty risk, because the issuer is the central bank.
The question Web3 people ask is usually not philosophical, it is tactical. Will CBDCs compete with stablecoins, or will they sit underneath them. Will banks be forced onto one rail, or will they run multiple rails in parallel. The honest answer is that we will see a messy middle period where tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and CBDCs all exist at once, because each one solves a slightly different problem. That is why the teams that win are usually the ones that can explain the trade-offs without sounding smug, and then build the integration layer that makes the choice less painful.
Onchain trade finance and supply chain settlement
Trade finance is one of those areas where the process is so old that everyone accepts the pain as normal. A single transaction can involve piles of documents, multiple intermediaries, and long waiting periods, even when the goods are already on a ship. Banks are piloting shared ledgers for trade documents and settlement because the biggest cost is not the money, it is the coordination. If both sides can see the same state of an invoice, a bill of lading, and a payment obligation, the bank can fund the trade faster with less manual checking.
This is also where programmable money becomes more than a marketing label. If an invoice is tokenized and the rules are clear, you can automate release of funds when shipment milestones are met, and you can reduce disputes because the record is shared. If you want a clean example of how that logic works without turning it into a thought experiment, this supply chain finance piece is a strong supporting link, because it stays grounded in the workflow and why banks care.
Final Thoughts
These pilots are quiet because banks do not get paid for being loud. They get paid for reducing risk, reducing cost, and moving value faster. Tokenized deposits and settlement networks aim at the settlement lag that locks up capital. Stablecoin rails aim at cross-border fees and delays. Tokenized assets aim at faster settlement and cleaner ownership records. CBDCs aim at neutral settlement and policy control. Trade finance pilots aim at cutting paperwork and speeding up funding.
If you work in Web3, the practical takeaway is simple. Build for the boring parts: compliance hooks, audit trails, permissioning, and integration with existing treasury systems. Then, write and ship like you expect a bank to test you in a sandbox first, because that is how these deals start. The teams that treat pilots as a product stage, not a press release stage, are the ones that get pulled into production later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are banks really using public blockchains for these pilots
Sometimes, but many pilots start on private or permissioned networks because that makes compliance and access control easier. Still, banks are increasingly testing bridges to public networks, especially for settlement and tokenized asset distribution.
Do tokenized deposits replace stablecoins
Not fully. Tokenized deposits are a claim on a bank deposit, while stablecoins are usually a claim on reserves held by an issuer. Banks may prefer tokenized deposits for internal and interbank use, while stablecoins can remain useful for broader distribution and 24 7 settlement.
What is the main reason banks pilot RWAs
Faster settlement is part of it, but the bigger reason is operational efficiency. Tokenized ownership records can reduce reconciliation work, reduce settlement risk, and make corporate actions easier to automate.
Will CBDCs kill stablecoins
Unlikely. CBDCs and stablecoins solve different problems and will probably coexist for years. In many cases, a CBDC could become a settlement asset that stablecoin systems plug into.
What should Web3 teams build if they want bank pilots
Build integration layers, compliance tooling, reporting, and workflows that fit how banks already operate. Then prove reliability in small pilots, because banks scale what works, not what sounds clever.
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