In Singapore, a survey by the bank DBS has found that most businesses it examined, 88 percent, have either begun using tokenised money or are testing it in pilot programmes, and the bank describes this pace as faster than it had anticipated. Companies appear to be drawn to the technology for practical reasons, namely smoother management of their cash and a way into new markets, rather than for speculation. Still, the figure blends firms that have fully adopted the tools with those still experimenting, and it comes from an institution with its own stake in the outcome. The larger question is wh
Nearly 90% of Businesses Deploying or Piloting Tokenised Money, DBS Survey Finds
88% have deployed or are piloting tokenised money
The headline number is 88%. What is it actually counting?
Businesses that have deployed tokenised money use cases or are piloting them. It's one combined group, so it measures participation, not full-scale adoption.
Right, and the report doesn't split deployed from piloting. A pilot can be small. So 88% is real, but it can't tell us how much money is moving.
Why would businesses want this in the first place?
Lim Soon Chong, who heads global transaction services at DBS, named two reasons: managing liquidity better and reaching new markets.
Worth noting those reasons come from the bank's executive, not from a breakdown of what respondents themselves said. We have his summary, not the data behind it.
He said adoption is faster than expected. Expected by whom?
The article doesn't say. It reads as the bank's own expectation.
Which means that phrase is a judgement, not a finding. We also don't know the sample size, the countries, or which kinds of tokenised money were included.
So what's solid here?
That DBS ran a survey, that it produced 88%, and that a senior executive reads it as quick uptake.
And that the bank has a commercial stake in this area. That doesn't make the number wrong, but it's context a reader should hold alongside it.
Der Puls
- A bank survey reports that 88 percent of businesses are already deploying or piloting tokenised money, a figure that has startled its own observers.
- Companies are reaching for the technology to free up liquidity and open doors to markets they could not easily enter before.
- The rapid uptake is outpacing the rulebooks, leaving open questions about how these pilots will be governed and supervised.
- Momentum is building toward bank-led payment infrastructure, but whether it hardens into lasting standard practice remains unsettled.
In Singapore, a survey by the bank DBS has found that most businesses it examined, 88 percent, have either begun using tokenised money or are testing it in pilot programmes, and the bank describes this pace as faster than it had anticipated. Companies appear to be drawn to the technology for practical reasons, namely smoother management of their cash and a way into new markets, rather than for speculation. Still, the figure blends firms that have fully adopted the tools with those still experimenting, and it comes from an institution with its own stake in the outcome. The larger question is whether regulation and banking infrastructure will mature quickly enough to carry these early experiments into everyday use.
A survey by DBS, the Singapore-based bank, has found that 88 percent of businesses have either deployed tokenised money or are running pilots with it. The bank says adoption is moving faster than it expected.
Lim Soon Chong, DBS's group head of global transaction services, explained the appeal. Firms are using tokenised money to manage liquidity more effectively and to reach new markets, treating it as a practical tool for corporate treasury rather than a speculative bet.
The figure combines companies already using the technology with those still testing it, so it reflects how widely firms are experimenting more than how fully they have shifted their operations. The reporting leaves out the size and makeup of the survey, the specific forms of tokenised money involved, and the benchmark behind the claim of faster-than-expected uptake.
The finding comes from a bank with a commercial stake in payments and transaction services. What it signals is that tokenised money is moving from concept toward routine use. Whether regulation and bank-led payment infrastructure keep pace will determine how far these pilots can grow.
SINGAPORE, Oct 28 — A survey by DBS, the Singapore-based bank, has found that 88% of businesses have either deployed tokenised money use cases or are piloting them. The bank's own reading of that number is that adoption is moving faster than it had expected.
The interpretation came from Lim Soon Chong, DBS's group head of global transaction services. His remarks followed the release of the survey results, and they were reported by Reuters on Tuesday from Singapore.
According to Lim, the businesses turning to tokenised money are doing so for two stated purposes: improving how they manage liquidity and gaining access to new markets. Those are the reasons the bank attributes to the global uptake, and they frame the technology as a tool for corporate treasury and cross-market reach rather than as a speculative product.
The 88% figure covers two groups that the survey treats together: companies that have already put tokenised money into use, and companies that are still testing it in pilot programmes. The reporting does not break out how many fall into each category, so the number says more about the breadth of experimentation than about how many firms have fully moved their operations onto tokenised rails.
The available reporting also leaves several details open. It does not say how many businesses were surveyed, which countries or industries they represent, or which specific forms of tokenised money were involved. It does not describe the individual use cases beyond the liquidity and market-access aims Lim cited. Nor does it give the benchmark against which the bank judged adoption to be faster than expected.
What the story does establish is the position of one of Southeast Asia's largest lenders: that tokenised money has moved from concept toward routine business activity, at least among the companies DBS surveyed. The claim comes from the bank, which has its own commercial interest in the payments and transaction services it runs, and the survey is its own.
The next thing to watch is whether this pace of adoption is matched by clearer regulatory frameworks and by bank-led infrastructure for tokenised payments, the two developments that would determine how far these pilots can scale.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
Global adoption of tokenised money is moving faster than expected among businesses seeking better liquidity management and new markets (paraphrased).— Lim Soon Chong, group head of global transaction services, DBS