DBS Survey Finds 88% of Businesses Use or Pilot Tokenised Money
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Corporate adoption of tokenised money reached 88 per cent among large enterprises deploying or piloting digital asset tools across 11 key markets, according to findings released on October 28 by Singapore lender DBS Bank.
The study surveyed 422 senior business and treasury leaders from companies generating more than US$500 million in annual revenue across Australia, China, Germany, the UK, and the US.
Roughly two-thirds of surveyed companies have already put tokenised money to work at scale or introduced it across selected regional operations. Businesses are relying on digital assets to manage cross-border corporate liquidity and open settlement corridors into new geographic markets without relying on traditional correspondent banking rails.
Stablecoins take the lead in corporate liquidity
Stablecoins emerged as the single most adopted tokenised instrument in the survey, with 63 per cent of corporate leaders reporting active use. Tokenised commercial bank deposits followed at 53 per cent, while tokenised money market funds accounted for 52 per cent.
Treasury teams prefer stablecoins because they settle instantly across fragmented networks without waiting for clearing house cut-offs. Lim Soon Chong, group head of global transaction services at DBS Bank, pointed to friction in legacy payment processing as a prime driver.
“Stablecoins, as you know, offer better fungibility across payment intermediaries, not just across banks. They are less cumbersome from a permissioning standpoint,” he said.
The speed of liquidity rebalancing gives commercial operators direct control over working capital. Cross-border wholesalers and supply chain aggregators save days of trapped cash during supplier invoicing and customs clearance runs.
“Stablecoins emerged as the single most adopted tokenised instrument in the survey, with 63 per cent of corporate leaders reporting active use.”
Southeast Asia leads target markets for business expansion
Corporate expansion strategies remain centred on Asia-Pacific corridors, with Southeast Asia ranking as the top destination for cross-border capital deployment. Australia and New Zealand took the second position for corporate entry, followed closely by India in third place.
Consumer goods distributors, e-commerce platforms, and logistics operators moving capital across these growth corridors face sharp exchange costs and clearing delays under bilateral banking rails. Tokenised rails allow international firms to bypass batch clearing, running continuous payouts directly to supplier balance sheets across Association of Southeast Asian Nations economies.
The operational shift changes how multinational retailers fund local inventory. Instead of pre-funding merchant accounts days ahead through intermediary banks, corporate treasurers can keep capital centralised until invoices come due at the point of fulfillment.
Trade settlement tilts toward the Chinese yuan
Bilateral payment preferences are shifting alongside tokenisation infrastructure. More than half of corporate executives surveyed in both Australia and the UK stated they are considering settling cross-border trade in Chinese yuan over the next one to two years.
Recent appreciation in the currency has prompted Chinese exporters to offer improved commercial pricing and credit terms for contracts denominated directly in renminbi rather than US dollars. Exporters in China are actively shifting counterparty terms to avoid foreign exchange volatility on their own domestic books.
The commercial incentives align with Beijing’s ongoing campaign to widen international adoption of its sovereign currency across key trade routes. Western and regional importers buying goods manufactured in China gain direct supplier discounts by settling directly in yuan, reducing exposure to dollar conversion fees.
Earlier pilots set the stage for commercial rollouts
The survey data shows those experiments have moved out of development labs and directly into commercial treasury departments. Multinationals with annual turnover exceeding half a billion dollars are no longer waiting for universal public central bank digital currencies, turning instead to commercially available stablecoins and deposit tokens to fix immediate cash drags.
Corporate treasurers now face clear execution milestones as Australia and UK companies finalize contract reviews for yuan-denominated billing cycles scheduled across the coming 12 to 24 months.
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