Uber has tested a blockchain-based treasury system with HSBC and Franklin Templeton that lets corporate cash stay invested in a yield-bearing product while remaining available for payments outside normal market hours, according to a company release reported by CoinDesk on October 31, 2026.
The pilot is complete. It paired two forms of tokenized money: tokenized bank deposits from HSBC, which represent commercial bank money, and tokenized money market fund shares from Franklin Templeton. Trading ran through Tradeweb, and wallet infrastructure came from Fireblocks. The assets moved on the Canton Network, a permissioned blockchain built for regulated financial institutions.
Idle cash that keeps earning until the moment it is spent
Corporate treasuries hold large balances that sit still. Cash parked for payroll, supplier payments, or short-term obligations usually earns little because it has to be liquid on demand, and money markets do not trade around the clock. The pilot targets that gap. Uber's cash could stay in a yield-bearing fund and convert to spendable money at the moment a payment is due, including nights and weekends when traditional settlement is closed.
Odette Rodrigues, Uber's Vice President of Corporate Finance, Treasury and Capital Markets, framed it as a starting point. "This pilot is an important first step in our journey towards a more efficient, 24/7 model," she said, adding that the setup "gives us greater flexibility to optimize yield on available cash while meeting payment" obligations.
Two kinds of tokenized money, moving together
The technical detail that matters is how the two tokens changed hands. The pilot used delivery-versus-payment settlement, which locks the transfer of the fund tokens and the payment into a single simultaneous step. Neither leg completes unless both do. That removes the window where one party has sent money and is waiting to receive the asset, the risk that sits at the center of most settlement failures.
Tokenized bank deposits and tokenized fund shares are not stablecoins, but they borrow the same core idea: value that can move on a shared ledger at any hour. The broader market has already shown that programmable money settles faster than legacy rails, which is part of why stablecoin settlement has grown into a foundation for crypto payments. Uber's test extends that logic to regulated bank money and a registered fund.
The plumbing already exists; adoption is the open question
Each piece here is already a working product. HSBC's tokenized deposits, Franklin Templeton's tokenized fund shares, Fireblocks custody, and Tradeweb trading are live services. The pilot's contribution was wiring them into one flow a corporate treasurer could actually use.
That matters because the hard part of tokenization has shifted. The technology questions are mostly answered. The open question is whether large companies will move real treasury operations onto these rails, and whether banks can staff and run them at scale. One recent account from Fireblocks argued that banks lack the engineers to deploy tokenization widely even as demand climbs. A completed pilot from a company Uber's size is a data point on the demand side of that equation.
It also fits a run of institutional tokenization launches this month, from asset managers putting tokenized funds on public chains to tokenized equity products. The common thread is traditional finance treating blockchains as settlement infrastructure rather than a speculative asset class.
Limits of a single pilot
Uber and CoinDesk did not disclose how much cash moved through the test, what yield it captured, or whether Uber plans to run live treasury balances on the system. Without those numbers, the pilot proves feasibility, not economics. A treasury team will not shift operations for a few basis points of extra yield if the operational overhead is higher, and the release did not quantify either side.
The Canton Network choice is worth noting. It is a permissioned ledger aimed at institutions, not a public chain, so the always-on benefit comes without the public-market exposure retail crypto users associate with on-chain finance. For a treasurer at a company Uber's size, that privacy and control is the point.
Overview
Uber completed a pilot with HSBC and Franklin Templeton to keep idle corporate cash invested in a tokenized money market fund while staying spendable outside market hours, using tokenized HSBC deposits, Tradeweb trading, Fireblocks custody, and delivery-versus-payment settlement on the Canton Network. The release did not include dollar amounts or yield figures, so the test shows the plumbing works without proving the business case. It lands alongside a wave of institutional tokenization moves in October 2026 and signals that corporate treasury, not just funds and equities, is now a live target for on-chain settlement.
