# RWA Daily: DBS survey separates broad experimentation from deployment at scale RWA Daily, edition 1. Published 2026-10-28. 6 min read. Canonical page: https://www.w3match.com/reports/rwa-2026-10-28 DBS's corporate survey puts tokenised money in use or pilots at 88% of respondents. Only 24% report deployment at scale. Product-specific percentages also include planned adoption, so they cannot establish current balances or transaction activity. ## In one minute DBS's corporate survey puts tokenised money in use or pilots at 88% of respondents. Only 24% report deployment at scale. Product-specific percentages also include planned adoption, so they cannot establish current balances or transaction activity. ## The main development DBS's new survey provides a useful picture of corporate interest in tokenised money, with a large gap between experimentation and routine deployment. The bank surveyed 422 executives at businesses with annual revenue above $500 million across 11 markets. Fieldwork took place in June and July 2026, before DBS published the survey on 27 October. Its publication is a snapshot of reported corporate practice, rather than a census of money held on blockchain networks. The adoption breakdown is the most useful part. [The survey coverage published on 28 October](https://fintechnews.sg/139876/digitalassets/dbs-survey-tokenised-money-adoption/) reports 24% deployed at scale, 43% with limited live use and 21% running pilots. Those categories sum to the 88% headline. Adding the first two produces 67% reporting some live deployment beyond a pilot, although most of that group remains limited in scope. That is a meaningful commercial signal. A treasury team willing to use a new payment instrument in one country has crossed a different threshold from a team still testing it. It may have accepted a counterparty, connected accounts or obtained internal permissions. Expansion across the whole business remains another decision, involving more currencies, subsidiaries, banks and reporting obligations. The instrument table asks a different question. Stablecoins register 63%, tokenised deposits 53% and tokenised money market funds 52% under a category combining use with planned adoption. These figures describe a pipeline as well as installed use. They should not be read as the percentage of corporate cash already converted into each instrument. The categories can also overlap. A company can explore a stablecoin for cross-border payments, a bank deposit token for internal transfers and a fund token for surplus cash. Counting product selections as separate adopting companies would therefore produce a misleading total. The survey's unit is the respondent and its reported choices, rather than unique wallets, settled transfers or invested dollars. The fair counterargument is that early adoption usually appears in precisely this form. Narrow deployments allow companies to test reconciliation, controls and counterparty exposure before committing more working capital. A pilot can be a genuine step toward a larger business process. The survey supports that interpretation; it does not establish how quickly each company will move through the stages. DBS supplies tokenisation services itself. That commercial interest is relevant when assessing the framing, without invalidating the responses. The strongest reading is that a sizeable sample of large companies is exploring several forms of digital money, while broad operational deployment remains the minority category. ## Numbers versus narrative The [DBS report, The Great Rewiring: Money in a New Order](https://www.dbs.com.sg/corporate/insights/treasuryprism/MoneyInNewOrder/Global%5FReport.pdf), separates adoption stages and instrument choices. Keeping those questions separate changes the investment implication. A high share of companies considering a product can coexist with small balances if each treasury department commits only a narrow part of its cash. There are three denominators to keep distinct. The share of respondents measures breadth across the sample. The share of treasury balances would measure economic commitment. Transaction value would measure throughput over a stated period. A company making frequent payments with the same cash can generate substantial throughput without maintaining a large end-of-day balance. None of those measures automatically establishes demand for a public governance token. A bank can operate a deposit-token service using its own liabilities, and a fund can issue digital shares while retaining conventional custody. The economic beneficiary may be a bank, administrator or software supplier, depending on who charges for the service and who bears the operating costs. Nor does the survey identify a universal legal claim behind tokenised money. A stablecoin holder's claim depends on the issuer's terms and eligibility. A deposit token represents a bank liability under its applicable framework. A money market fund share provides an interest in a portfolio with its own dealing rules. Similar transfer interfaces can conceal different redemption, credit and asset risks. ## What it means in practice A treasury department assessing a deployment needs to specify the job first. For payments, the relevant comparison is the complete route from the company's bank account to spendable money at the recipient. Faster token transfer only saves time if funding, compliance checks and conversion at the destination also work when required. For cash investment, the comparison changes to yield after fees, dealing windows, custody and access to redemption. An instrument transferable around the clock may still depend on a fund administrator or bank operating during business hours. A secondary buyer can provide an exit while primary redemption is closed, but that introduces a price and counterparty rather than removing the constraint. Implementation also has a balance-sheet consequence. Moving an existing cash balance into a different representation can improve workflow without creating new investable capital. Conversely, a genuinely useful payment route can matter commercially even if its outstanding balance stays small because funds pass through quickly. The correct success measure depends on the job the product performs. For suppliers, the opportunity is therefore more specific than selling tokenisation in general. A provider that can prove fewer reconciliation breaks, lower prefunding requirements or a reliable cross-border payout route has a stronger case for expansion. The survey offers a list of interested corporate users, not a substitute for demonstrating those outcomes. ## What to watch next A useful deployment report would also disclose failed payments and manual interventions. Successful transfers alone can hide the operational work required to keep a new route functioning. The next useful evidence would connect an adoption stage to a named operating result: repeat payments, the share of eligible treasury cash committed, or expansion from one subsidiary to several. Comparable measurements before and after deployment would make the commercial benefit testable. A follow-up survey using the same questions could show whether pilots graduate into limited production and whether limited production reaches scale. Until then, the 24%, 43% and 21% groups should remain separate. Their movement over time will say more about implementation than another combined adoption headline. ## Sources - [The survey coverage published on 28 October](https://fintechnews.sg/139876/digitalassets/dbs-survey-tokenised-money-adoption/), fintechnews.sg, Publication date not specified - [DBS report, The Great Rewiring: Money in a New Order](https://www.dbs.com.sg/corporate/insights/treasuryprism/MoneyInNewOrder/Global_Report.pdf), www.dbs.com.sg, Publication date not specified Every number names its provider and date. Not financial advice.