Key Takeaways
- OCBC has issued $1 billion worth of digital commercial paper on JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform.
- Kinexys’s Digital Debt Service integrates tokenized deposits for payment settlement.
- The commercial paper market is ripe for tokenization.
Singapore’s second-largest bank, OCBC, has issued a $1 billion digital tokenized commercial paper program using JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform.
Originally branded as Onyx, Kinexys is a permissioned, private blockchain designed for wholesale tokenization and institutional transactions.
Tokenized Commercial Paper Gathers Steam
Given the multi-day clearing times associated with legacy infrastructure, commercial paper, a type of short-term debt instrument issued by large corporations, is an ideal target for tokenization.
Banks have been trialing the technology for several years, but until recently, this was limited to small-scale pilots.
Key milestones include Intesa Sanpaolo’s issuance of 10 million euros in commercial paper using Clearstream’s D7 tokenization platform in 2024.
That same year, JPMorgan launched its Digital Debt Service (DDS) platform on Kinexys.
The solution integrates the bank’s tokenized deposit token, JPMD, enabling near-instant USD settlement of commercial paper transactions.
Blockchain-Native Tokenized Securities
The rise of on-chain commercial paper contrasts with another emerging trend in securities tokenization.
A growing number of stock tokens listed on various exchanges are pitched by advocates as a more streamlined, accessible way to access shares in public companies.
However, although they are presented in a tokenized wrapper, the underlying assets are still traditional securities.
Against this backdrop, the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) has called for stricter rules around custody, disclosure, and marketing, emphasizing that stock tokens rarely grant holders rights to the underlying assets.
Commercial paper solutions like OCBC’s offer an alternative vision for digital securities issuance, in which blockchains function as the ultimate source of truth.
Such products are only possible thanks to the support of regulators like the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which explored tokenized commercial paper as part of Project Guardian.
Commenting on the latest issuance, OCBC’s head of global markets, Kenneth Lai, said:
“Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem is advancing fast, and asset tokenization is gaining real momentum.”
“The speed and transparency of this solution have only strengthened our conviction in blockchain’s transformative power for capital markets,” he added.
Toward Tokenized Money Markets
Tokenized commercial paper is part of a broader move toward blockchain-based money markets.
By integrating with deposit tokens and stablecoins, these instruments could enable 24/7 trading and global liquidity access.
For corporates, that means faster and more resilient funding; for investors, it opens the door to more transparent and efficient short-term assets.
James Morales is CCN’s blockchain and crypto policy reporter. He has been working in the news media since 2020, writing about topics such as payments, banking and financial technology. These days, he likes to explore the latest blockchain innovations and the evolving landscape of global crypto regulation.
With an educational background in social anthropology and media studies, James uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.
