Remarks by Ms Andréa M Maechler, Deputy General Manager and Acting Head of BIS Innovation Hub, Bank for International Settlements (BIS), at the Singapore Fintech Festival, Singapore, 12 November 2025.
Tokenisation has challenged the way we think about money and promises a major leap in how the financial system functions. Understanding the technology behind tokenisation, together with the opportunities and risks it presents, is crucial.
Tokenisation introduces the possibility of creating two distinct worlds: private permissioned platforms, which are regulated and governed by trusted entities, and public permissionless platforms, which operate in open, decentralised environments with limited oversight and greater risks. The latter is largely uncharted territory and will require sound and comprehensive analysis to understand how these different worlds can coexist.
For central banks, as guardians of the financial system, the monetary system must keep up with technological advances, and it must do so while maintaining its most precious asset: trust in money.
Today, the features that underlie trust in money and financial stability are closely intertwined with the role of deposits. Tomorrow, tokenisation has the potential to carry forward the strengths of a time-tested system into a tokenised programmable world for the benefit of the wider economy.
Conclusion
The future may not belong to one form of money, just like the past never did. It may belong to a spectrum from cash to digital money.
As we look to the next decade of finance, tokenisation represents a transformative innovation. We need to embrace the opportunities of tokenisation, while confronting the risks proactively, with robust technology and policy safeguards. As technology transforms the very fabric of our monetary and financial systems, we must uphold the importance of trust in money and reaffirm our commitment to inclusion, resilience and integrity of the financial system.
Tokenisation is not about discarding what works. With tokenisation we can carry forward strengths of today’s system into a tokenised programmable world for the benefit of society and the wider economy.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
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