DBS survey of 422 large firms finds 88% using or piloting tokenised money

In short

• DBS's survey, reviewed by InvestIn.News, showed 88% of 422 large companies across 11 markets are using or piloting digital cash.
• Stablecoins lead at 63%, followed by tokenised deposits at 53% and money market fund tokens at 52%.
• Two-thirds of respondents said they have moved beyond testing to full or partial live use, according to the survey.
• On X, users asked how much of the 88% reflects real settlement rather than pilots.

Survey take-up at 88%

On 28 October 2026, Singapore lender DBS released survey findings on digital cash take-up. It found that 88% of 422 large firms in 11 markets, among them the US, UK, Australia, China and Germany, were either using such money or running pilots. The poll ran from June to July and covered executives at companies with yearly revenue above $500m; about two-thirds of respondents said they had gone past trials to full or partial live deployment. Stablecoins led use at 63%, ahead of tokenised deposits at 53% and money market fund tokens at 52%.

Lim Soon Chong, DBS's group head for global transaction services, said stablecoins are more fungible across payment intermediaries, not just across banks, and are less cumbersome from a permissioning standpoint, according to Mint. Taken together, the three adoption percentages exceed 100%, suggesting that many respondents use several instruments at once rather than choosing one.

Southeast Asia and the renminbi

The same DBS survey found Southeast Asia was the top destination for businesses expanding into new markets, cited by 65% of respondents, followed by Australia and New Zealand at 50% and India at 45%, according to The Business Times. More than half of respondents in Australia and the UK said they were considering the Chinese renminbi for trade settlement in the next one to two years, and 78% of companies overall were building exposure to multiple settlement currencies.

What the 88% figure misses

The 88% headline should be read carefully. The survey covers only companies with revenue above $500m and comes from DBS, a bank that sells tokenised services, so it is not a neutral census, according to cryptobriefing.com. The figure also mixes companies that have fully deployed such instruments with those still running pilots, and it does not show how much real transaction volume is moving through these instruments.

Reactions from X

Users on X questioned how much of the 88% reflected actual settlement. Road N (@RoadNaw9i) said 'turning to' often means simply exploring and asked how many firms were settling real volume rather than still running pilots. PetroWasHere (@petrowashere) argued that the instruments look convenient until a bank controls what they can be used for, while perrier_9595 (@perrier_9595) said the hard part of cross-border trade is matching each payment to its invoice afterwards; if tokenisation solved reconciliation, he would be interested. Crypto Lounge (@CryptoXLounge) said companies want quicker settlement and programmable payments through deposits and stablecoins they already trust, and Roasts Everyone (@RoastsEveryone) noted that 90% of businesses but none of his friends could explain the concept.

DBS's Lim Soon Chong said the bank's investment in tokenised payments could catch up with and exceed its traditional money investment in two to three years, according to The Business Times. The survey also found most leaders expect benefits such as better auditability and traceability within two years, with 72% expecting that, and 65% planning to optimise treasury liquidity, according to MarketScreener.

Questions readers ask

What is tokenised money?

Digital cash recorded as a token on a shared ledger is the basic idea. DBS's survey found businesses use stablecoins, tokenised deposits and money market fund tokens, often several at once.

How many large companies use digital cash, according to DBS?

DBS's survey of 422 large companies across 11 markets found 88% are using or piloting digital cash, with two-thirds beyond the testing stage. The 88% includes companies still running pilots.

Which instrument is most widely adopted?

Among the instruments covered, stablecoins drew the widest take-up, cited by 63% of respondents. Tokenised deposits came next on 53%, with money market fund tokens just behind on 52%, the DBS survey found.

What are the limits of the DBS survey?

The survey covers only companies with revenue above $500m and comes from DBS, which sells tokenised services. It does not show how much real transaction volume is settled.

Our view

At InvestIn.News, we think the adoption captured in DBS's survey is real, but the 88% headline needs careful reading. The figure combines full deployments with pilots and comes from a bank that stands to benefit from the shift. Even so, the breadth of instrument use, stablecoins at 63%, tokenised deposits at 53% and money market funds at 52%, suggests companies are not merely experimenting. The detail that two-thirds of respondents have moved beyond testing is a meaningful sign of early adoption. We treat the survey as directional evidence, not a neutral census. The next test is whether independent data show stablecoin settlement and corporate balances rising outside DBS's own client base.

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Keshav Aggarwal

What to watch: DBS expects its investment in tokenised money to catch up with traditional money in two to three years, according to Lim Soon Chong.