Citi Puts Tokenization and Real-Time Clearing to Work for Global Liquidity

Liquidity decisions for multinational enterprises have always been defined by timing. Treasury teams watch cutoff times, forecast balances and pre-fund accounts before weekends or bank holidays.

Stephen Randall, global head of Liquidity Management Services at Citi, told PYMNTS in a recent interview that those days are ending as enterprise payment expectations shift to real time. Treasury is now expected to move money when business happens, not when the banking calendar says it can.

Traditional liquidity management happens once a day. Treasury teams take a position, reconcile balances and set funding instructions that do not change again until the next business morning.

Randall noted this structure only works in a world where payments run on limited schedules. “If you move to an always-on structure then effectively it is a continuous round-the-clock process,” he told PYMNTS.

The friction shows up everywhere. Forecasting must include buffers large enough to protect critical payments. Legacy operating systems still rely on batch cycles and downtimes. Treasury teams monitor screens to make sure cash is in the right place, then wait for the next window to make changes.

Randall said treasury operations are evolving. Funding is becoming continuous. Staffing models are changing. Technology can support round-the-clock processing without “green zone” downtime.

Tokenization Moves From Concept to Cash Management Tool

Randall said tokenization has shifted from an experimental technology to a treasury function.

Citi, for its part, is integrating its Citi Token Services platform with 24/7 USD clearing to give institutional clients in the U.K. and U.S. the ability to make near-instant cross-border USD payments and liquidity movements.

The model uses tokenized internal transfers on Citi’s permissioned blockchain and combines that with the bank’s clearing capabilities. The goal is simple: clients should fund accounts and release liquidity exactly when they need to rather than one or two business days earlier.

Tokenization is an “enabler,” Randall said, as it supports automated sweeps and on-demand funding decisions while still working with traditional rails and account structures.

One example shows the value immediately. If a U.S. payment is due on a Tuesday after a Monday bank holiday, a treasurer using traditional methods has to fund the account on Friday. Randall said tokenization combined with 24/7 clearing lets treasurers wait until Monday, then move funds in near real time so the payment still hits Tuesday morning. That avoids locking up liquidity for three days and allows treasury to deploy cash elsewhere over the weekend. This approach removes cutoffs and reduces the need to park excess balances across multiple banks.

Interoperability Will Decide How Fast Tokenization Scales

The next challenge is scale. Tokenization works, but treasury teams need interoperability to realize its full value. Randall said achieving interoperability in the near term is ambitious but realistic because key building blocks are already in place.

He described a mindset shift taking place. Financial institutions began with pilots and single-use cases. As they expand into more payments, liquidity and funding scenarios, clients see the need for shared systems and common standards. Proof of concepts, Randall said, have helped users see “different aspects of those use cases requiring interoperability for it to be useful for their clients.”

Collaboration will matter as much as technology. Randall pointed to cross-industry work happening through the Bank for International Settlements on interoperability and tokenized deposits. The goal is to create shared regulatory, technology and compliance frameworks that eliminate barriers.

He noted that fragmentation is not a risk theory. Fragmentation costs money. If tokenized deposits and digital assets become isolated within siloed systems, enterprises can face higher liquidity costs. “Bringing flows of liquidity together will probably be a driver for bringing interoperability,” he said, because firms want liquidity they can optimize at scale rather than in separate pockets.

Interoperability also depends on legal clarity and anti-money laundering (AML) safeguards across borders. Randall said clients want confidence that tokenized flows meet sanctions requirements and compliance standards, especially when moving money between countries and currencies.

Automation Will Redefine Treasury Work

The shift to real-time liquidity does not replace traditional treasury tasks. It changes how teams do them. Randall envisions accounts that automatically draw funding when balances fall below thresholds, transforming manual sweeps. At Citi this is becoming a reality and tokenization is helping to allow those instructions to run continuously, he said. For example, Citi unveiled Citi Real-Time Funding, (RTF) an automated solution for clients to move liquidity across their Citi accounts, in real time and across borders, to fund payments. RTF automates a real-time transfer so that they can make the payment when their business needs it without manually processing the account funding.

He said the benefit goes beyond optimization and delivers resilience. Automated liquidity can keep cash where it needs to be when payment flows are unpredictable.

According to Randall, treasury is evolving from once a day funding decision to a model where liquidity follows the business without waiting. “It allows you to program and automate,” he said, describing tokenization as a tool to help clients “move their money on a near-real-time basis” across borders and time zones.