Seven UK Banks Complete First Interbank Tokenised Deposit Transactions on Quant Platform

Seven of the United Kingdom’s largest banks have executed what they describe as the world’s first customer transactions using tokenised British pound deposits moving across a shared interbank platform. Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest, and Santander participated in the Great British Tokenised Deposit initiative, running on infrastructure built by distributed ledger technology provider Quant. The tested transactions covered remortgage payments and a consumer purchase, marking the first time regulated bank money in tokenised form has moved between institutions rather than remaining within a single bank’s own arrangement.

The distinction matters operationally. Tokenised deposits are digital representations of money already held in conventional bank accounts; unlike stablecoins, they remain liabilities of the issuing institution and carry standard deposit protections. An earlier Lloyds initiative used tokenised deposits internally to purchase a tokenised gilt, but the current exercise explicitly tests cross-institutional flows and retail payment scenarios, which raises the complexity and the potential scope considerably.

The initiative sits inside a broader regulatory push. The Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority are preparing the UK financial system for tokenisation and extended settlement hours, and are weighing stablecoins as a possible route to institutional settlement. Economic Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Rigby cited the live transactions as evidence that tokenised deposits can deliver contingent payment structures that give customers greater control over their funds. Quant founder and chief executive Gilbert Verdian described tokenised deposits as potentially playing a key role in the evolution of digital money domestically and internationally.

The consortium’s next declared step is testing settlement of digital assets using tokenised customer money, which would push the initiative further into capital-markets infrastructure territory. How quickly that phase moves, and whether the Bank of England’s wider framework accommodates it, will determine whether this pilot becomes the template for UK interbank settlement or remains a carefully scoped proof of concept.