Banking / Tokenized Cash

Token Services for Cash: Citigroup's Approach

Citi Token Services turns corporate deposits into tokens on a private, permissioned blockchain, so clients can move USD and euros between Citi branches around the clock. It went live in 2024 and runs in the US, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and Ireland.

Summary

Citi Token Services (CTS) is Citi's tokenized deposit service. It represents client deposits as tokens on a private, permissioned blockchain inside Citi's network, so clients can move funds 24/7 between their own and third-party Citi accounts in different countries. The money stays a Citi deposit throughout. Only the transfer mechanism changes.

How it works

Citi made Citi Token Services for Cash commercially available in October 2024, after a year-long pilot, and named Mars as the first client (Ledger Insights). The service went live in the US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. In September 2025 Citi connected CTS to its 24/7 USD Clearing service. In November 2025 it added euro transactions and a hub in Dublin. In July 2026 Siam Commercial Bank became the first financial institution client anywhere to go live on the combined CTS and 24/7 USD Clearing offering.

A treasurer using CTS sees a payment instruction, not a wallet. Funds sit in ordinary Citi accounts. When the client sends a transfer, CTS moves a token representing the deposit from one Citi branch to another on the bank's ledger. Citi describes the platform as operating "entirely within the regulated banking system" and tokenizing "deposits held within Citi's global network". The ledger belongs to Citi and every participant is a Citi client, so there is no outside token issuer and no dependency on a public chain.

CTS removes the cut-off. A transfer between Citi branches settles when it is sent, including nights, weekends and holidays. The September 2025 link to 24/7 USD Clearing took this beyond the Citi network. Citi called it an industry first. At launch it was open to institutional clients in the US and UK, around the clock and including US holidays. 24/7 USD Clearing connects more than 300 financial institutions across more than 50 markets. The first SCB transaction, made by Phillip Securities Thailand over a US holiday weekend, moved USD from London to Thailand.

The footprint has grown each year. The November 2025 expansion let clients in Dublin send both USD and euros around the clock to their own and third-party accounts at Citi branches already live on CTS. Citi said then that CTS "continues to process billions of dollars in transactions". In September 2026 Nikkei Asia reported that Citi plans to offer the service to Japanese corporate clients as early as the end of 2026, linking Japan with its five existing hubs. The same report said Citi moves roughly $6 trillion a day, of which tokenized deposits account for about $1 billion.

The design is a tokenized deposit, not a stablecoin. For a corporate treasurer the difference is practical. A CTS token is a claim on Citi, held under the same regulation and account relationship as any Citi balance, and it cannot leave Citi's network. That limits reach, because every recipient has to bank with Citi. It also keeps payments inside existing credit, compliance and accounting processes. Citi's wider digital asset platform is covered on a separate page. CTS is only about cash.

Business goal

Impact

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