SWIFT Ledger Goes Live as Banks Run Tokenized Deposit Payments

This matters less as a payments upgrade than as a governance signal: SWIFT is positioning its ledger as a coordination layer that sits on top of banks' own tokenized deposits, rather than a settlement venue that displaces them. That keeps deposit-taking, compliance and balance-sheet control with the banks, which is likely why both a Gulf/US pair and Singapore's three local lenders could participate without ceding their rails. The open question is whether participation broadens beyond these initial corridors and currencies, or whether the ledger remains a testbed where banks validate interoperability without committing volume.