- Bruno Mellado
- Global Head of Payments & Receivables, BNP Paribas
Corporate treasury is entering a new phase, with tokenisation moving from concept to deployment. It spans high-value transactions and even programmable ESG-linked flows, and while the shift is subtle for now, it promises to reshape how money moves, how risk is managed, and how treasury connects to the broader business.
Tokenisation has long been associated with capital markets and retail wallets. Now, its influence is shifting towards the real economy, where corporate treasury is beginning to explore its potential for managing liquidity, settlement risk, and supply chain flows.
What makes tokenisation different is its potential to change how payments are processed at a fundamental level.
Bruno Mellado, Global Head of Payments and Receivables, BNP Paribas, sees one central benefit above all others: “Tokenisation changes a paradigm in finance, as it removes settlement risk. When a large-value payment isn’t confirmed immediately, a delay of five or even 24 hours has a cost for someone. Tokenisation eliminates that cost.”
This hidden cost is familiar to treasurers. When funds are transferred for an acquisition, a bond issue, or a large supplier payment, even short settlement lags can result in lost investment income, emergency funding costs, or delayed operations. Closing that gap transforms not just treasury workflows but corporate finance itself.
Two adoption paths are emerging. One takes an evolutionary approach, embedding tokenised cash into existing regulatory, risk, and monetary policy frameworks. The other is more disruptive, driven by retail payments and remittance models that could eventually ripple into wholesale finance. Both are already influencing treasury, as clients explore how to collect tokenised funds and whether to work with banks or alternative partners.
As with most new technologies, adoption will not be uniform. Mainstream treasury use cases may take five to ten years to develop, but some initial steps are already underway. “The first movers are likely to be the largest global banks, working with their biggest multinational clients and major currencies,” Mellado notes. “We’ll see those players out of the gate within the next two to three years.”
High-value use cases emerge
So, where does tokenisation create the most immediate value? For Mellado, the answer is clear: high-value transactions. These are where settlement delays and counterparty risks are most acute, and where a missed confirmation can have ripple effects across liquidity positions and funding decisions.
Examples include MMF investments, bond issuances, and even capital-intensive purchases such as aircraft. Each of these carries a natural “stress point” between initiation and settlement. “All these use cases of high-value transactions that need certainty and that have to reduce settlement risk can benefit from tokenisation right now,” Mellado asserts.
Its impact lies in how it reshapes the sequencing of payments. Traditional payments move through a chain of verifications, often taking several hours as each participant checks and approves its part. Tokenisation flips this sequence: all questions and verifications are answered before any funds are moved. “Everyone has to approve the transaction upfront and only then is it executed,” Mellado points out. “Your account is debited only once the corresponding credit is confirmed at the other end.”
Such certainty is essential for industries where delays pose significant financial risks. From oil and gas shipments to intricate automotive supply chains and aerospace finance, any transaction requiring funds to be certain, immediate, and final benefits from this certainty. The same principle applies in capital markets, where even a few minutes of settlement delay can result in missed opportunities.
It also reduces the need to factor in counterparty risk while funds are in transit. For treasurers, this can free up liquidity, reduce buffer funding, and provide clarity in risk reporting. While consumer payments will also benefit from certainty, the most considerable financial impact comes where liquidity values are highest and transaction risk is most visible.
“When you’re moving €2m, €100m or even €1bn, it’s not just about peace of mind,” Mellado stresses. “It’s about avoiding wasted opportunities where that money could be invested, generating revenue or closing a liquidity gap.”
Connectivity without complexity
Speed and certainty prompt a practical question: how does tokenisation fit with today’s payment channels? One misconception is that tokenisation requires entirely new payment channels. In reality, corporates will continue to rely on familiar host-to-host (H2H) connections. But APIs offer something different: they enable payments to be triggered by events and confirmed instantly.
Mellado explains: “API connectivity is more adapted to triggering a tokenised payment. It initiates the payment out of an event and gives an instant response, either confirming it’s done or outlining what still needs to be provided.”
APIs handle not only initiation but also real-time responses and conditional checks, making them a natural fit for tokenised settlement. By contrast, H2H models tend to operate in bulk, with less granularity for individual payment events. For tokenisation, where conditions must be confirmed before funds move, API-based event triggers fit naturally.
For treasurers, one thing remains unchanged: the funds being tokenised are the same corporate deposits held in bank accounts, with the same guarantees and regulatory protections. This is fundamentally different from non-bank-issued stablecoins or other tokenised assets with separate counterparty risks. Tokenisation, in this context, refers to creating a faster and more certain way to transfer existing money.
Treasurers, therefore, need to carefully consider integration. Systems must be capable of handling API responses, conditional logic, and real-time event triggers, so it’s vital to engage with banks early to ensure connectivity strategies are future-proof, even if tokenised settlement is initially limited to specific corridors or use cases.
Public and private highways
The early infrastructure for tokenisation is emerging as a hybrid of public and private systems. Central banks play a crucial role in ensuring stability and regulatory compliance, while commercial banks and infrastructure providers drive innovation and commercial momentum.
“We need the central bank to ensure regulatory compliance, financial stability and currency control,” reflects Mellado. “Without that, the party’s over.”
Public-sector involvement ensures trust, while private players provide agility, investment, and creativity. Central banks are already exploring wholesale CBDC models to support interbank tokenised settlement, laying the groundwork for faster and more secure corporate payments in the future.
Fintechs also have a role to play, often targeting niche use cases that banks may not initially prioritise. Banks bring liquidity and regulatory access, while fintechs contribute specialised innovation. Working together, they can deliver tokenised solutions tied directly to real-world cash management, balancing creativity with practical execution.
This model is creating “the private highways of the few,” as Mellado describes it – fast settlement routes between global banks and their largest corporate clients. These corridors will support tokenised settlement for high-value, high-priority payments long before smaller banks or peripheral markets adopt similar models.
For treasurers, this means a mixed environment for years to come. Some payments will be able to travel at “highway speeds” end-to-end, while others will rely on conventional rails for part of their journey. Even partial tokenisation can reduce settlement times, but treasurers will need to choose the correct route for each payment based on its value, urgency, and counterparty readiness.
The risk is fragmentation, with tokenised and non-tokenised payments running in parallel. Treasurers must remain flexible, ensuring that systems can handle both without adding complexity. Over time, public-private collaboration should improve interoperability, widening access beyond today’s private highways. As Mellado notes: “These public-private use cases are probably going to define how the systems of tomorrow work.”
Atomic settlement and programmability
These infrastructure changes don’t just affect how fast payments move. They also deliver atomic settlement. In a tokenised world, funds are debited only when the beneficiary has received them, in a single, indivisible action rather than a two-stage process. “The moment you’re debited is because your beneficiary has the money,” Mellado outlines.
This is a paradigm shift for treasurers accustomed to reconciliation delays and “in-flight” payments. Atomic settlement eliminates those uncertainties, reducing the need for contingency liquidity and removing the need to place a price on trust in counterparties during settlement.
Programmability takes this further by embedding conditional logic into payments, so funds are released only when predefined requirements are met. The potential applications are wide-ranging: ensuring payments reach only certified suppliers, confirming compliance with clean energy or non-GMO sourcing, or even supporting social policies such as paying female employees electronically to prevent coercion.
As Mellado elaborates: “Once we digitise the relevant documentation, our imaginations can take flight.” In practice, this could mean that development aid is released only to approved providers of food, medicine, or water, ensuring that funds are used exactly as intended.
For treasury, programmability means embedding governance at the point of payment, not just applying it after the fact. Compliance rules can be built directly into cash flows, delivering both operational efficiency and risk mitigation. As Mellado highlights: “These are the kinds of financial applications we’re likely to see shaping the next 20 years.”
Two paths, one destination
While these applications point to the future, tokenisation is already at work in corporate finance, with two clear paths emerging. One involves companies with complex ecosystems of buyers, sellers or goods, where blockchain networks are already live and fuelled by tokenised cash. These cases remain rare but mark a growing frontier, especially among technology-driven firms.
The second path focuses on more traditional treasury pain points, including intercompany settlements, supplier payments, and cross-border funding. “Those use cases are already at treasury’s fingertips, and teams will start experimenting with the technology this year,” Mellado enthuses.
Treasurers should begin by mapping cash flows to identify where speed, certainty, or conditionality deliver real business value. From there, they can work with banking partners to test tokenised settlement on selected corridors or transaction types. Success depends not just on technology but also on people and skills, with treasury collaborating more closely with IT, compliance and ESG teams to master new connectivity models, conditional payments, and integrated data flows.
As Mellado puts it: “The most valuable use cases aren’t confined to a single department. Real value is unlocked when treasury works with colleagues in procurement, core business, FX and short-term investments.”
This can require a mindset shift from payment processing to value chain orchestration. Treasurers who develop these cross-functional skills will be well placed to exploit tokenisation’s full potential.
Beyond the tip of the iceberg
These corporate steps, however, don’t exist in a vacuum. The speed of tokenisation’s evolution will also depend on broader financial infrastructure, particularly the role of central banks and the emergence of wholesale CBDCs. Mellado notes that the European Central Bank is already preparing a wholesale CBDC pilot, offering 24/7 settlement capabilities between banks.
Globally, jurisdictions will progress at different speeds and may pursue divergent models. For treasurers, this means an extended period of experimentation and the adoption of hybrid processes. The benefits of tokenisation will be real, but unevenly distributed, for years to come.
Even so, the long-term trajectory remains clear. Tokenisation promises more reliable and programmable cash flows, with potential advantages in liquidity, risk management, and governance. Treasurers who begin now, by testing tokenised payments within controlled corridors, exploring programmable conditions, and assembling cross-functional teams, will be better positioned as adoption accelerates.
The reality is that tokenisation is both a near-term tool and a long-term transformation. “We have just seen the tip of the iceberg,” Mellado concludes. “The real value lies in linking business opportunities with treasury and using programmability to gain greater control over payments.”
