CIMB Group Holdings Berhad has announced plans to develop tokenised financial services across assets, settlement and next-generation payment rails, marking a significant step in supporting Malaysia’s national agenda to expand the adoption of tokenisation within the financial ecosystem.
The initiatives will be rolled out in phases under Securities Commission Malaysia’s (SC) industry pilot programme on securities tokenisation. CIMB also plans to engage Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to seek admission into the central bank’s Digital Asset Innovation Hub.
CIMB Group Chief Executive Officer Novan Amirudin said the Group is positioning itself to play a leading role in strengthening Malaysia’s financial market infrastructure.
“CIMB is pleased to play a leading role in advancing Malaysia’s evolution towards a modern, resilient financial market infrastructure. In line with our purpose of advancing customers and society and our Forward30 strategic plan, we are strengthening our digital and tokenisation capabilities to address real opportunities and democratise market access across the banking and financial ecosystem,” he said.
As a key near-term milestone, CIMB has committed to Khazanah Nasional Berhad’s and the SC’s tokenised sukuk issuance pilot project. The Group will support the programme across multiple workstreams, including structuring, execution, custody arrangements and full lifecycle servicing. These pilot workstreams are expected to progress through 2026, with phased capability build-out aligned to regulatory and operational readiness.
Over the past three years, CIMB Malaysia has issued approximately RM40 billion in conventional bonds and Islamic sukuk. As digital asset capabilities mature, the Group intends to apply insights from the pilot by progressively issuing part of its future funding requirements in tokenised bond and sukuk formats.
CIMB’s development of tokenised assets will focus on improving efficiency and connectivity across payments and capital markets, while advancing the use of digital asset-based instruments within a modernised financial market infrastructure. In parallel, the Group is building capabilities to support tokenised deposits — regulated bank deposits represented in token form — as a settlement instrument for tokenised securities.
According to CIMB, the use of tokenised deposits is expected to strengthen settlement efficiency and transparency, while reducing manual processing and reconciliation across issuance and settlement. This approach also enables greater scalability and asset fractionality.
“Well-designed asset tokenisation offers several potential advantages to fundamentally transform the industry, particularly in terms of accessibility, efficiency and transparency across payments and wholesale banking,” Novan added. “We will begin with practical, use-case-driven applications, implemented within regulatory frameworks and underpinned by strong governance and controls.”
CIMB said it is working closely with BNM and the SC to ensure alignment with prevailing prudential and regulatory expectations. Robust risk management, governance and controls have been embedded from the outset, anchored on a compliance-by-design approach. Any product roll-out will be subject to regulatory requirements, internal governance approvals and technology readiness.