Canada’s Big Six banks test tokenized deposits on a shared blockchain
She called the project “really exploratory,” saying it would mainly benefit large companies moving large sums through “more sophisticated transactions.”
Large producers could settle accounts far faster than their typical 30-day window, Cristian Bravo, professor and Canada Research Chair in banking and insurance analytics at Western University, said, calling instant settlement a fix for market inefficiency.
He said digital money differs from cryptocurrency, describing it as a “digital ledger to move deposits in a very quick, instant way.”
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions set out its position on September 10, in a statement on tokenized and other digitally represented deposits.
“The underlying technology of a financial product or service does not determine its legal nature. To be clear, we focus on what the product or service is, not how it is built or delivered,” the statement reads, adding that tokenized deposits are not legally distinct from traditional deposits.
