BMO brings tokenized cash and deposits to CME’s 24/7 settlement rails

BMO will let clients convert dollars into tokenized cash and deposits on CME and Google Cloud’s Universal Ledger, enabling 24/7 margin, collateral and B2B payments.

Bank of Montreal (BMO), one of the largest banks in North America by assets, announced on March 24 that it will launch tokenized cash capabilities in collaboration with CME Group and Google Cloud, becoming the first bank to offer CME’s institutional tokenized cash solution on the Google Cloud Universal Ledger — a private, permissioned distributed ledger designed specifically for traditional financial institutions.​

The platform allows BMO’s institutional clients to convert U.S. dollars into a tokenized instrument for use with margined products at CME Group, supporting high-value real-time settlement needs including margin calls, collateral movement, and derivatives trading — all on a 24/7 basis, free from the cutoff constraints of conventional banking infrastructure.​

Two Products, Two Client Sets

BMO’s announcement introduces two distinct capabilities. The first — tokenized cash — is designed for mutual clients of CME Group and BMO operating in capital markets and commercial banking. The bank plans to offer this institutional settlement instrument to regulated financial services firms in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

The second capability — tokenized deposits — is broader in scope. It will allow BMO to offer traditional commercial bank funds in digital form to a wider set of BMO clients, enabling general-purpose B2B payments, treasury movements, and programmable cash applications. Together, the two products represent a full-spectrum approach to digitizing dollar-denominated liquidity across institutional and commercial use cases.​

The Infrastructure Behind It

The platform runs on Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), a programmable distributed ledger that CME Group and Google Cloud began piloting in March 2025 for secure wholesale payments and capital markets settlement. Following initial integration and testing, CME and Google Cloud had targeted 2026 for new service launches — BMO’s participation represents the first live institutional deployment of that infrastructure.​

The timing is significant. CME CEO Terry Duffy had already signaled in February 2026, during the company’s Q4 earnings call, that CME was evaluating tokenized collateral frameworks and even exploring its own digital token for margin settlement. “So if you were to give me a token from a systemically important financial institution, I would probably be more comfortable than maybe a third or fourth-tier bank trying to issue a token for margin,” Duffy said, framing BMO’s participation as precisely the kind of bank-anchored model CME has been seeking.​

Regulatory Momentum

The BMO announcement arrives as regulators have begun constructing frameworks to accommodate tokenized assets in derivatives markets. In December 2025, the CFTC launched a supervised pilot for tokenized derivatives collateral, allowing registered futures commission merchants to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, and tokenized real-world assets as margin collateral under direct federal oversight. Industry leaders including Coinbase, Circle, and Ripple welcomed the move as a step toward faster, safer settlement.​

BMO’s tokenized cash platform slots directly into that emerging regulatory architecture — a bank-grade, permissioned instrument designed to operate within the same capital markets rules that govern traditional futures and derivatives, while unlocking the round-the-clock settlement capabilities that crypto-native markets have long taken for granted.