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Bank of Montreal said on March 24 it plans to introduce a tokenized cash and deposit platform with CME Group and Google Cloud. The announcement said the initial offering is for mutual BMO and CME Group clients, scheduled for the second half of 2026 and subject to regulatory approval. The system will run on CME Group's permissioned network built on Google Cloud Universal Ledger.
What clients will be able to do
Clients will convert U.S. dollars into tokenized cash for use with margined products at CME Group. A separate tokenized deposit product is planned for business-to-business payments, treasury movements, and programmable cash. CME Group's Suzanne Sprague said the arrangement targets real time use at CME Clearing for margin and settlement obligations. Google Cloud has described Universal Ledger as its platform for digital asset issuance, management, and settlement.
From pilot to named bank use case
CME Group disclosed in March 2025 that it was working with Google Cloud on a pilot for wholesale payments and asset tokenization, with testing due later that year and a service launch targeted for 2026. The BMO deal moves that project from an infrastructure pilot to a concrete banking use case tied to collateral and settlement. It is also a different direction from BMO's 2018 blockchain bond pilot, which mirrored a fixed income issuance. This time the focus is tokenized cash and deposits, not securities.
Regulatory picture
BMO said the initial service is pending regulatory approval but did not name the authority or authorities involved. In Canada, OSFI supervises banks including Bank of Montreal, which BMO identifies as governed by the Bank Act. CME Clearing operates in the U.S. as a derivatives clearing organization overseen by the CFTC. The announcement did not say which regulatory regime applies to the tokenized cash product itself.
Who this affects
The initial user base is mutual clients of BMO and CME Group. The practical change is the ability to convert bank money into tokenized instruments and use them for collateral and settlement around the clock inside a permissioned network. No pricing, supported asset types beyond U.S. dollars, or go-live date have been confirmed.
