Asian financial services giant DBS has launched tokenized, structured notes on the Ethereum network for accredited institutional investors, marking the public chain expansion of the bank’s digital asset programme.
The memo is issued in Ethereum and sold in smaller units ($1,000) than traditional private bank products, targeting distribution to eligible clients through licensed platforms.
The move follows the deployment of DBS of crypto-related options and structured memos for eligible clients in late 2024, with the bank saying it will begin in the fourth quarter of that year.
These products provided exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum through OTC options and structured memos, expanding their risk management and yield toolset within the agency’s obligations. Today’s tokenized issue will take its product line on-chain and shift the issuance and secondary logistics to Ethereum settlement rail.
DBS is running parallel experiments on permitted infrastructure within a transaction banking stack. In October 2024, the bank announced its DBS token service. This is an EVM-compatible permission blockchain integrated with the core payment engine to enable Treasury tokens, conditional payments, and programmable rewards.
The suite was designed for real-time payments and interoperability with existing payment networks. By placing structured notes directly in public Ethereum, DBS maintains the EVM toolset already in use by Enterprise Pilots, while extending publication beyond the closed ledger.
Singapore’s regulators are driving industry pilots to map standards and management of tokenized markets. The financial authorities of the Singapore Project Guardian coordinated pilots across 24 financial institutions, including DBS, with bonds, forex and assets and asset management to develop issuance protocols and market practices.
As reported by MAS, Workstream has drafted fixed income data standards and document guidance in line with the issuance of tokenized bonds and notes. DBS’ Ethereum deployments prefer and reflect tracking its policies and pinning security tokens to public infrastructures that already host deep liquidity and touring.
DBS is also testing public chain settlements for institutional capital markets. In November 2023, UBS, SBI and DBS completed their cross-border repositories using digital bonds and regulated digital payment tokens issued natively on the public blockchain under the Project Guardian. The deal settled repos, bond purchases and redemptions across regulated entities in Japan, Singapore and Switzerland.
The pilot described lifecycle events for debt certificates on public networks. This is the step in today’s DBS issuance operations that operate private banknote operations.
Bank distribution and investor eligibility reflect the boundaries of existing digital assets. DBS restricts crypto-linked products to certified and institutional clients through enforcement supported by digital asset exchanges and custody stacks.
For each DBS digital exchange, access is performed via agency members and private banking channels. Tokenized notes about Ethereum store their gatekeeping and reduce the size of the unit of investment compared to traditional structured notes.
Banks are reportedly packaging their products into smaller sects to allow for portfolio rebalancing and more frequent secondary activities.
Win at Ethereum in RWA Space
In the case of Ethereum, issuing a structured memo by a regulated issuer to MainNet expands the RWA footprint beyond pilot debt and funds.
This model uses chain transfers and services to enable payoff profiles for cash settings tied to cryptographic or traditional foundations. It also complies with MAS instructions, standardizes bond product issuance data and smart contract clauses, and eases settlements in primary dealers, custodians and markets.
For each MAS, the bond workstream focuses on tokenized products protocols and disclosures. These memos can be used in production.
The deployment also completes a timeline that began with DBS’ own exchange security token issuance in 2021, which priced a $15 million digital bond as the first STO for DDEX.
That issue set up more private placement and pathways for custody. Since then, banks have tiered market access with OTC options, Stablecoin Remerves management, and tokenized financial pilots, and have since moved issuance and secondary flows to the same EVM family that Ethereum used.
DBS’ tokenized memo on Ethereum places regulated issuer balance sheet products in public ledgers under the Singapore policy framework that maps bond and funding standards.
The program will extend the 2024 structured noteline to on-chain publication and services for accredited and institutional clients, and arrive with the previous public chain repository experience and authorized EVM tools already in place.
