Monument Bank plans to tokenize £250M in retail deposits on Midnight blockchain

While the biggest names in traditional finance have spent the past two years building tokenization infrastructure for hedge funds and sovereign wealth managers, a UK challenger bank just pointed that same technology at a very different audience: regular people with savings accounts. Monument Bank is moving to tokenize up to £250 million (roughly $330 million) in retail customer deposits on the Midnight blockchain, a privacy-focused network designed by Shielded Technologies. If the project launches as planned, it would mark the first time a UK-regulated bank has brought tokenized deposits to retail customers. What Monument is actually building The tokenized deposits will maintain a 1:1 peg with traditional savings balances, fully backed and redeemable in pounds sterling. Monument’s target demographic is what the wealth management industry calls “mass-affluent” clients, people with investable assets between £50,000 and £5 million. The Midnight blockchain uses zero-knowledge proofs to keep transaction details confidential between the bank and its customers while still allowing regulatory audits. Monument currently manages roughly £7 billion in deposits across more than 100,000 custome...