Bank of Montreal, part of BMO, is joining forces with derivatives marketplace CME Group and Google Cloud to launch a tokenized cash and deposit platform. This will make BMO the first bank to offer CME Group’s tokenized cash solution on Google Cloud Universal Ledger (GCUL), the three companies said in a joint press release on Tuesday.
The partnership will allow BMO’s institutional clients to convert U.S. dollars into tokenized instruments 24 hours a day, enabling real-time margin calls, collateral movements and settlement without the constraints of traditional banking hours, the press release said.
BMO plans to offer the settlement instrument to regulated financial services providers in the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
“Customers will be able to continuously transfer money when the market demands it, not when banking hours permit,” Derek Vernon, head of North American treasury and payment solutions at BMO, said in a statement.
The announcement is the latest milestone in the CME-Google Cloud partnership, which dates back to March 2025, when CME Group completed the first phase of integration and testing for GCUL. The Google Cloud Universal Ledger is a programmable distributed ledger designed for wholesale payments and asset tokenization that uses Python-based smart contracts, setting it apart from blockchains that typically rely on Solidity for Ethereum.
CME CEO Terry Duffy telegraphed the banking partnership during the exchange’s Q4 2025 earnings call in February, where he confirmed that the tokenized cash solution would be rolled out this year using “another custodian bank” to facilitate these transactions. CME is also moving its cryptocurrency futures and options to 24-hour trading in early 2026, making a seamless, always-available collateral infrastructure increasingly important.
The deal also fits within a broader institutional wave. JPMorgan has already rolled out tokenized deposits to Coinbase’s layer-2 blockchain Base via its JPMD deposit token. Meanwhile, Fidelity Investments has said it plans to launch a US dollar-backed stablecoin called the Fidelity Digital Dollar.
For BMO, the platform is designed to lay the foundation beyond clearing: the bank says it also plans to offer tokenized deposits that enable general B2B payments, treasury movements and programmable cash applications for a broader group of customers.