According to ChainCatcher news, the European Banking Authority (EBA) has released a report on tokenized deposits, stating that from a regulatory perspective, tokenized deposits are fundamentally the same as traditional deposits. The agency plans to analyze existing regulations to determine if they are sufficient. It noted that due to the limited activity in tokenized deposits so far, there is no urgency to take action. A survey conducted in March identified only two projects but did not specify their names.
The analysis indicates that one of the projects should be the Commercial Bank of Germany's currency token (CBMT), as it mentions five banks and five enterprises; another possibility is Euroclear's D-FMI, as it is purely used for securities settlement and references the UTXO used by R3's Corda enterprise blockchain. According to the EBA's survey, 17% of EU banks plan to engage in tokenized deposits in the next two years.
The paper explores the benefits of tokenized deposits, such as programmability, efficiency, and atomic settlement. It argues that most banks may adopt permissioned blockchains due to the need to identify customers, and the Basel Committee's crypto rules make it difficult for banks to use permissionless blockchains. However, the institution considers the typical 51% attack risk of blockchain and the potential reliance on third parties, while programmability may introduce additional liquidity risks. Nevertheless, the report points out that it is still too early to discuss the impact of tokenization on deposit stickiness.