Citi has gone live with a set of “next-generation” banking services powered by distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts.

Citi Token Services for Cash, which facilitates multimillion dollar transactions for the bank’s institutional customers, has moved from a pilot to a live commercial solution after the technology was trialled in partnership with shipping agents CB Fenton and GAC Panama Shipping.

The new service facilitates 24/7 cross-border liquidity and payments between participating Citi branches.

The platform has been developed using a private licensed blockchain, owned and operated by Citi and can also be accessed by clients who do not hold or manage any tokens.

The firm initially trialled the technology between Singapore and New York,, with plans to onboard additional branches in the future.

Ryan Rugg, head of digital assets, treasury and trade Solutions at Citi emphasised the progress of Citi Token Services as a key component of Citi’s pursuit of real-time, always-on-services for its institutional clients.

“By using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and smart contracts, Citi has created a patented programmable payment and liquidity platform, which will reduce costs and streamline processes,” he said.

American multinational manufacturer  Mars, an early adopter of the platform, said that through the use of the technology the company was able to initiate and schedule instant payments and cash movements between its Citi accounts, reducing downtime and speeding up transactions by tokenizing cash.

“With Citi’s private blockchain, we can access all the benefits of blockchain, without any complexity or additional risk - our processes, reporting, and operational risk remain identical,” said Mayela Stuparitz, global treasury director at Mars.

Commenting on the pilot transit operations completed by CB Fenton and GAC Panama, Chris Cox, global head of trade and working capital solutions at Citi said that they demonstrate the potential for global trade when manual and time-consuming processes are replaced by cutting-edge digital solutions and present a “significant opportunity to extend Citi Token Services for Trade more widely in the future.”

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