Major UK banks have completed the first live customer transactions using tokenised sterling deposits over shared multibank infrastructure, a step that moves programmable commercial bank money out of testing and into real retail payments.

The transactions were carried out under the Great British Tokenised Deposit (GBTD) initiative, convened by industry body UK Finance. Participants include Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander, with Quant supplying the underlying technology.

In one set of tests, Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays took part in two remortgage transactions, while a separate three-bank group that included HSBC executed a marketplace payment. The exercises demonstrated how sterling already held as regulated commercial bank deposits can acquire programmable settlement functions that operate across different institutions.

Remortgage Funds Released Automatically at Completion

In the two remortgage transactions, deposit funds were locked until the conditions for completion were satisfied, at which point the money was released automatically. This structure reduces the manual checks and settlement delays involved in moving funds between parties during a property transaction. It can also let customers keep earning interest on money that remains in their account while awaiting completion, rather than transferring it earlier in the process.

The project additionally explored connecting the process digitally with HM Land Registry to automate more of the transaction lifecycle.

Tokenised deposits remain claims on commercial banks rather than becoming separately issued stablecoins. According to UK Finance, the digital deposits retain the regulatory protections attached to conventional bank money while adding programmability, conditional settlement and faster transaction processing.

Lloyds had already demonstrated a different model in January, when it used tokenised deposits on the Canton Network to purchase a tokenised UK government gilt.

Marketplace Payment Tied to Exchange of Goods

The marketplace transaction used programmable sterling to keep money locked in the buyer's account until the agreed conditions were met. Payment was released only once the goods had been successfully exchanged, giving the seller confirmation that funds were available without requiring the buyer to surrender control before completion. UK Finance identified reduced fraud risk and greater confidence between buyers and sellers as two potential benefits of the arrangement.

Quant built the shared GBTD infrastructure to connect participating banks, rather than requiring every institution to operate inside a single proprietary deposit system. Its technology provides programmability and interoperability with existing bank ledgers, Faster Payments, Open Banking and other payment infrastructure. The shared design is what allowed the live transactions to move programmable sterling between customers of different banks — a baseline requirement if tokenised deposits are to work in ordinary retail payments, where money routinely crosses institutional boundaries.

The UK project follows other efforts to move regulated bank money onto programmable rails. Swift has been testing 24/7 payments using tokenised deposits with 17 global banks, while the Bank of England is extending settlement availability as tokenised markets develop. The common thread across these initiatives is the use of tokenised commercial bank deposits, rather than separately issued stablecoins, as the vehicle for programmable settlement.

Digital Asset Settlement Comes Next

UK Finance plans further GBTD pilots involving digital asset settlement. Participating banks will issue digital debt instruments that can be traded and settled against tokenised deposits, with coupon payments also made using tokenised commercial bank money.

The work coincides with the UK's broader push toward near-24/7 settlement across traditional and tokenised financial markets.

Quant is also supplying technology for The Clearing House's new On-Chain Money Initiative in the United States. That network will connect tokenised deposits with existing RTP and CHIPS payment rails and is expected to become available to participating financial institutions in the first half of 2027.

Having completed its first live retail remortgage and marketplace transactions, the GBTD platform will continue with digital-asset settlement trials. Those pilots will indicate whether programmable deposits can support not just retail payments but also the issuance, trading and settlement of digital debt instruments — extending the model from consumer transactions toward capital markets activity.