The future of digital assets
Money is going through one of the biggest transformations in history. As technology evolves, the financial ecosystem that powers everyday transactions must adapt to meet changing customer expectations and to accommodate new ways to pay.
Digital assets are a critical part of this shift. As they move from experimentation to mainstream, they are changing the very nature of money itself – how it moves, how transactions are settled and how banks and customers will operate in an increasingly digital “on-chain” world.
This transformation will take place over many years. At NatWest Group, we are building with that long-term future in mind by anticipating customer expectations and ensuring we stay ahead of the curve so that we’re exactly where they need us to be. This means investing in the right technology and working collaboratively across the industry so we can help lead this change by testing, learning and adapting at pace.
Delivering value for customers
As a trusted partner to our customers, it’s important that our approach evolves in line with their needs. While awareness of digital assets is growing, our recent research with retail customers shows that they lack knowledge and confidence in engaging with them. In fact, more than 60% of those surveyed said they didn’t understand how digital assets worked*.
People expect payments to be easy – they don’t want to think about the technology behind their money, whether that’s core banking services, payment infrastructure or, in time, digital assets. Ensuring that the use of new technology remains seamless, safe and effortless is essential to retaining customer trust. This is why we’re committed to responsible innovation, placing education, confidence-building and protection at the heart of what we do.
We believe tokenised deposits, combined with programmability, are significant in the next phase of payments.
The next phase of innovation
Innovation works best when it is shared. Collaboration across the industry helps reduce fragmentation by avoiding operational complexity – and we’re working with our peers across the sector to play an active role in both UK and international pilots which are shaping the future of banking.
We believe tokenised deposits, combined with programmability, are significant in the next phase of payments. Bringing traditional currencies onto digital platforms and enabling payments to follow predefined rules – such as releasing money only when certain conditions are met – will give customers greater control over how and when money is used.
For example, retail customers using online marketplaces to buy anything from takeaways to clothes, typically see funds leave their account at the point of purchase. With programmability, funds can be instructed to be released only once an order has been delivered. For corporate and wholesale clients, programmability will simplify large and complex transactions with clear applications across trade finance, letters of credit, and processes like issuing or syndicating bonds.
As the financial landscape continues to shift, and customer expectations increasingly evolve, we’re investing and innovating to shape the future of payments.
To help bring this to life, we are testing several major initiatives with our peers and regulators. In the UK, the Great British Tokenised Deposit (GBTD) project is assessing how retail banks could support tokenised deposits for domestic payments. Internationally, Project Agora – led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), with over 40 commercial banks and seven central banks – is examining how tokenised deposits could improve cross border wholesale transactions.
NatWest Markets has also taken part in trials led by the European Central Bank, completing multiple tokenised transactions in 2024. Additionally, our work with Finteum’s FX platform has delivered improvements in liquidity management, enabling faster and more efficient foreign exchange transactions with our partners.