Wells Fargo joins JPMorgan and Citi in the race to tokenize Wall Street’s settlement rails

Wells Fargo joins JPMorgan and Citi in the race to tokenize Wall Street’s settlement rails

Finance

Wells Fargo joins JPMorgan and Citi in the race to tokenize Wall Street’s settlement rails

Payments will run on the bank’s proprietary blockchain and be routed automatically through its existing client interface.

By

Francisco Rodrigues

|

Edited by

Jamie Crawley

Aug 4, 2026, 3:47 p.m.

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Summary

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Wells Fargo will launch tokenized deposits this fall, starting with a limited dollar-to-pound exchange for select corporate clients.

Payments will run on the bank's proprietary blockchain and be routed automatically through its existing client interface.

Round-the-clock settlement and programmable payments are among the capabilities the bank describes as arriving "when fully deployed." Wells Fargo plans to expand to more clients, countries and currencies in 2027.

Wells Fargo (WFC) will offer

tokenized deposits for select corporate and commercial clients later this year

, starting with enabling round-the-clock U.S. dollar-to-British pound transactions on its proprietary blockchain.

The bank frames round-the-clock settlement, programmable payments and parity with its existing deposit protections as future enhancements, saying the system will let clients move, program and settle funds 24/7/365 "when fully deployed."

The limited initial rollout will expand to more clients, countries and currencies throughout 2027. Its system will automatically route eligible payments through tokenized deposits when doing so improves speed or flexibility, without changing how clients interact with the bank.

Tokenized deposits represent conventional bank balances on a blockchain. Unlike stablecoins, they remain commercial bank money and Wells Fargo says they will carry the same regulatory protections and deposit-insurance eligibility as its existing deposit products.

Future features will include conditional payments using smart contracts, according to the bank.

The platform could also support in-house custodial wallets and connections to other blockchains. Wells Fargo said it can integrate with a shared

tokenized-deposit network

being developed by The Clearing House, according to the

Wall Street Journal

.

The bank joins

JPMorgan and Citi

, which already operate institutional tokenized-deposit services as they battle the growing threat of stablecoins reducing their deposit bases. The rollout follows Wells Fargo’s March

trademark application for WFUSD

, which could be associated with a deposit token or stablecoin.

Wells Fargo has been developing blockchain payment rails since at least 2019, when it announced

Wells Fargo Digital Cash

for internal cross-border transfers. It later

started settling

foreign-exchange transactions with HSBC through a shared blockchain.

Read More:

24/7 financial rails: How BNY plans to eliminate the weekend lag in U.S. Treasuries

banks

Tokenization

tokenized deposits

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