Cryptocurrencies,  Technology

Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase Launch Tokenized Deposits

16 banks join forces to fight stablecoins’ ability to poach savings accounts

By  / June 8, 2026 /

A group of America’s biggest banks are launching tokenized deposits in order to stave off the threat that stablecoins will poach depositors.

Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are among the 16 major banks that have joined forces with The Clearing House to build a tokenized deposit network to enable 24/7 blockchain-based settlement of bank deposits.

Banks have been running scared that depositors will turn to stablecoins like Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT instead of bank accounts to save their money, particularly if they are able to earn interest (or yield) on their stablecoin savings. Banks have been working to try and ban such yield offerings.

The new initiative with the Clearing House, which clears $2 trillion in payments daily for banks, will connect on-chain payments with traditional fiat payment rails, combining the “existing regulatory, operational, and settlement frameworks of established payment market infrastructure with the programmability and interoperability of blockchain-enabled financial activity,” The Clearing House said in a statement.

More prosaically, bank customers’ deposits would be represented by digital tokens that move on blockchain rails. Unlike stablecoins, that would keep customers’ funds within the banking system.

Making payments, especially across international borders, is expensive and can take several business days to complete. Tokenized deposits allow blockchain infrastructure to make near-instant transfers around the clock while dramatically reducing costs — exactly what crypto and stablecoin payments offer.

Saying his bank is “committed to advancing digital commercial payments,” Max Neukirchen, global co-head of J.P. Morgan Payments, added that “a regulated market-infrastructure solution for clearing and settling tokenized deposits — built on the same proven principles as core payment settlement — is essential to keeping the payments ecosystem stable, resilient, and effective.”

The move, by 16 banks including Citizens Financial Group, Fifth Third Bank, HSBC, Key Bank, PNC Bank, TD Bank and Wells Fargo, show how quickly and deeply blockchain technology has moved into the financial mainstream.

In 2025, Standard Chartered argued that stablecoins could reach $2 trillion by 2028. That’s a potential displacement of up to 10% of bank deposits.

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Leo Jakobson, Modern Consensus editor-in-chief, is a New York-based journalist who has traveled the world writing about incentive travel. He has also covered consumer and employee engagement, small business, the East Coast side of the Internet boom and bust, and New York City crime, nightlife, and politics.