Citi Token Services Goes Live in Japan and the UAE
Citi's private tokenised-deposit network now spans seven markets; Japan supports US dollars while the UAE supports US dollars and euros.
Citi Token Services went live in Japan and the United Arab Emirates on September 28, 2026, extending the bank's private tokenised-deposit network to seven markets. Corporate and financial-institution clients can use US-dollar balances in Japan and US-dollar or euro balances in the UAE for participating cross-border treasury and liquidity flows. The expansion matters because it adds two major Asian and Middle Eastern booking locations without turning the service into a public stablecoin or an open blockchain product.
Two markets, different currency coverage
Japan supports tokenised US-dollar deposits. The UAE supports tokenised deposits denominated in both US dollars and euros. Citi says the service is also live in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Dublin and New York, forming a seven-market network.
Citi Token Services is designed to let eligible clients move bank deposit balances across participating Citi locations around the clock. Citi says the platform has processed billions of dollars in transaction value, but its September 28 release does not define the measurement period or publish market-level volumes. That figure should therefore be treated as the company's cumulative description rather than a comparable operating metric.
Private bank money, not a public stablecoin
The service runs on Citi's private, permissioned blockchain infrastructure. The units represent commercial-bank deposits held with Citi, rather than bearer tokens circulating on a public network. Clients do not need to manage their own blockchain nodes, wallets or private keys.
That design keeps customer identity, account eligibility and transaction controls within Citi's existing institutional banking framework. It also means the geographic expansion should not be read as retail availability or as permission for third-party wallets to hold and transfer the deposits.
Availability remains account-based
The launch is live, but access is limited to qualifying corporate and financial-institution clients with the relevant Citi accounts and onboarding. The announcement does not name a self-service retail product, external wallet support, country-by-country client eligibility, pricing or service-level commitments.
The useful change is narrower and operational: eligible clients in the two new locations can use tokenised deposit balances through Citi's institutional network with the currency coverage Citi specified. Broader adoption, transaction volumes and additional market launches remain undisclosed.