Chainlink’s Sergey Nazarov says banks are building their own tokenized deposit chains

Banks spent years treating blockchain like a science project in the basement. Now, according to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, many of them are building their own tokenized deposit chains.

Nazarov made that point at Sibos 2026, the annual banking conference held from September 28 to October 1 in Miami Beach. The important question is no longer whether banks will put deposits onchain. It is how all those separate chains will talk to each other.

What Nazarov told the Sibos crowd

Nazarov appeared on at least three panel sessions during the event. His fellow panelists included representatives from DTCC, J.P. Morgan and Microsoft.

The sessions covered three broad themes. One was how global digital asset markets are evolving. Another paired “intelligent money” with AI, and a third looked at building a trust layer for interoperable finance.

His core argument was about demand. Institutions increasingly need infrastructure that can manage many blockchain environments at once, rather than betting everything on a single network.

Nazarov positioned Chainlink’s tools as the answer to that problem. Two products took center stage: the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) and the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE).

CCIP works like a universal translator for blockchains. It lets assets and messages move between networks that would otherwise be unable to communicate. CRE acts as the operating environment where institutions can run workflows spanning those different systems.

He said institutions could save multibillion-dollar amounts each year by running their workflows efficiently onchain.

The Swift and DTCC demos

Chainlink also showed off a connectivity framework at the conference. It lets financial institutions plug into Swift’s blockchain ledger.

Through that link, banks could run cross-border payments around the clock and execute smart contracts using tokenized deposits.

The second showcase involved DTCC. Chainlink is working with DTCC on the Collateral AppChain, a system built to make collateral management more efficient.

The AppChain is designed to handle collateral in near real time across different chains, shuffling pledged assets between parties and networks without the usual delays and manual reconciliation.

Why banks want tokenized deposits

A tokenized deposit remains a bank liability, just like money in a checking account. The difference is that it moves as a programmable digital token, which can transfer instantly and follow coded rules.

These tokens stay inside the regulated banking system. They are backed by bank balance sheets and sit under existing regulatory frameworks, including FDIC insurance.

Regional lenders are teaming up on shared efforts, including the Cari Network, which involves around 30 US banks.

A group of 16 major banks is building the On-Chain Money Initiative and is aiming for a 2027 launch.

What this means for banks and Chainlink

Banks are pursuing tokenized deposits partly to stay relevant against nonbank digital currencies. Tokenized deposits let banks compete on speed while keeping regulatory protections such as FDIC insurance that a startup-issued token would not carry.

The presence of DTCC, J.P. Morgan and Microsoft on his panels signals that this conversation has moved well past crypto-native circles into discussion of production infrastructure.

The key milestones to track are concrete ones. Watch whether the Cari Network and the On-Chain Money Initiative hit their timelines, whether Swift’s ledger connections move from demonstration to live use, and whether the DTCC Collateral AppChain processes real collateral at scale.