A new DBS survey has found that 88% of large businesses have either deployed or are piloting tokenised money use cases. The respondents are organisations each with annual revenue exceeding $500 million, according to the survey.
Survey details
DBS polled 422 global business and finance leaders between June and July. The sample spanned 11 markets, including the US, UK, Australia, China, and Germany.
Roughly two-thirds of respondents said their companies had gone beyond the testing stage, reporting either full deployment of tokenised money at scale or live use in selected locations. The remaining adopters are still in pilot mode, meaning the 88% figure combines committed users with companies still testing.
Instruments used
Stablecoins topped the list of instruments, used by 63% of respondents. Tokenised deposits followed at 53%, with tokenised money market funds just behind at 52%. These numbers sum to well over 100%, suggesting many firms are running several forms of digital cash side by side rather than choosing a single instrument.
Expected benefits
According to the research findings, 72% of respondents expect better auditability and traceability within two years, while 65% plan to optimise treasury liquidity as a primary benefit. More than three-quarters of respondents reported adapting their operations to support new markets.
DBS perspective
The data arrived alongside remarks from Lim Soon Chong, group head of global transaction services at DBS, who framed the results as evidence of real value rather than experimentation for its own sake. “Our interpretation is that there are significant benefits,” Lim said.
Implications
For the crypto market, the clearest signal is about stablecoins: when 63% of big companies surveyed report using them, stablecoins start to look less like a trading tool and more like corporate infrastructure. For banks, tokenised deposits at 53% show that lenders can compete by putting their own balance sheets on-chain, though every corporate dollar moving through a stablecoin may sit outside a bank’s deposit base.
Caveats
The survey covers only large organisations with revenue above $500 million, so it says little about smaller firms that may lack the resources to experiment. The figures also combine full deployment with pilots, and the headline number does not distinguish between a single test transaction and a meaningful program. Additionally, the data comes from a bank with a clear interest in the outcome, so readers should treat it as a well-informed snapshot rather than a neutral census.
