Barclays Accelerates Push Into Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits

Barclays is looking to build a blockchain platform that could handle stablecoin payments and tokenized deposits, Bloomberg reported Friday (Feb. 27), citing unnamed sources.

The bank has sent a request for information to some technology suppliers that could help it add digital asset technology, and it aims to start working with suppliers as soon as April, according to the report.

Barclays did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

PYMNTS reported in January 2025 that many of the world’s biggest banks have for years been exploring blockchain technology. Over the past few years, a handful of pilot initiatives launched by financial institutions have worked to highlight the technology’s potential to reimagine traditional banking systems.

It was reported Feb. 18 that a tokenized deposit network built by five banks and Cari Network, a blockchain-based platform led by former Comptroller of the Currency Gene Ludwig, is expected to be available to the banks’ customers in the fourth quarter.

The five banks participating in the project are First Horizon, Huntington Bancshares, KeyCorp, M&T Bank and Old National Bancorp.

In January, BNY enabled the on-chain mirrored representation of client deposit balances on its Digital Assets platform and said this marked the first step in its strategy to tokenize deposits.

With this initiative, the bank aims to support programmable, on-chain cash for institutional market structure. Several financial institutions and digital natives are participating in the project.

The PYMNTS Intelligence and Citi collaboration “Building the Blockchain Blueprint: How Leading FIs Are Modernizing Money, Markets and Trust” found that blockchain technology is starting to shift from experiment to infrastructure as leading banks build shared ledgers, tokenized money programmable settlement rails to move value in real time.

Blockchain is not replacing traditional financial infrastructure, but rather being folded into it, Biswarup Chatterjee, global head of partnerships and innovation, Citi Services at Citi, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in December 2025.

“What really excited us is the fact that we are able to integrate [blockchain] into our operating model … create a 24/7, always-on, on-demand ecosystem for our clients,” Chatterjee said. “But the key word is integration.”