Treasury

New blockchain solutions are integrating corporate treasury and retail banking, and opening the transactions system to multiple issuers of tokenized deposits and stablecoins. But regulators worry these innovations could make the global system more fragile.

Tuesday, 2:14 PM GMT: Elena, the treasurer of a global logistics giant in Rotterdam, stares at a red alert on her dashboard. A supplier in Singapore demands an immediate $40 million settlement to release a shipment of semiconductors. The old banking system would tell her she’s out of luck; her euro liquidity is trapped in a T+1 settlement cycle and the foreign-exchange swap markets are too slow for an instant release.

But Elena’s treasury operations are kinetic. She hits “Execute.”

Four thousand miles away in Chicago, it is 8:14 AM: David, a retail banking client, is buying coffee. His phone buzzes with a silent notification: “Yield Generated: $4.20.”

He doesn’t know it, but in the last 18 seconds, J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys algorithm borrowed the digital title of his tokenized vacation home, which was sitting idle in his portfolio, then pledged it as collateral to mint $40 million in intraday stablecoins for Elena.

In less than a minute, the transaction is over.

Elena’s chips are released in Singapore.

The bank has managed its risk without touching its own balance sheet.

And David has paid for his morning coffee just by owning a house.

Two-tiered digital asset strategies, combining institutional/bank-led Tier 1 and retail/public chain Tier 2 transactions to merge corporate treasury and retail banking, are now a reality. Programmable money appears inevitable; the struggle is over who—banks or crypto-natives—will control this “kinetic” new world connecting retail assets with corporate liquidity.

“Our mandate for Kinexys by J.P. Morgan is to transform how information, money, and assets move around the world from an institutional perspective,” says Arif Khan, chief product officer for Kinexys Digital Payments. “Since inception, over US$3 trillion in transaction volume has been processed on the Kinexys platform, which processes on average more than US$5 billion daily in transaction volume.” Although Kinexys’s offerings are not aimed at retail clients, it enables banks to use retail assets as collateral for institutional clients.

Tony McLaughlin, a contributor to “The Regulated Liability Network,” a 2022 white paper and blueprint for bank-led digital money, left Citi last year after a two-decade career to found Ubyx, a stablecoin clearing system. He sees the November 2024 US elections as clarifying the route for banks to interact with public chains.

“This is because stablecoin regulation was more likely to pass, and stablecoins live on public chains,” he says. “It would be intolerable if only non-banks were able to offer stablecoins on public chains, so it would be necessary for banks to be able to enter the market.”

McLaughlin predicts the development of a “pluralistic market structure, just like we have in [credit] cards,” with “many issuers and many receivers” and a variety of issuers—including both banks and non-banks—offering tokenized deposits and a variety of stablecoins. The “great unlock,” he foresees, is building “a common acceptance network.” Corporate treasurers will utilize a mixture of tokenized deposits, stablecoins, and tokenized money market funds from different issuers.

Ubyx is working to get banks and fintechs to offer wallets for clients to receive stablecoins and tokenized deposits, ensuring transactions “are processed within the regulatory perimeter and go through KYC, AML, fraud, and sanctions checking,” McLaughlin says. The current situation, where “stablecoins are transacted across self-custodial wallets,” is less desirable, he says, since the supply of these unregulated wallets is “infinite” while the supply of regulated wallets is “essentially zero.”

McLaughlin blames regulators who have “placed a large ‘Keep Off the Grass’ sign on bank participation in public blockchain,” allowing the “vacuum” to be “filled by unregulated players.” Bank and fintech involvement will make these new transaction processes safer, he argues, and “dramatically increase the regulated nodes in these networks.” He draws a parallel to the evolution of streaming media; just as content piracy gave way to streaming TV and music from “reputable players,” so the transition to a more honest and reliable digital transactions system will come about on public blockchains.

“We believe that both private and public blockchain options will coexist moving forward,” says Khan. “Institutional firms that want to keep their money movements on a private permissioned network will still benefit from the 24/7, 365-day, programmable benefits that blockchain infrastructure provides.”

The Interoperability Imperative

While banks pitch kinetic treasury as a liquidity upgrade, regulators and wealth strategists warn it may introduce new fragility into the global transactions system. Without a public digital currency, Fabio Panetta, governor of the Bank of Italy, has warned, the payments market will be dominated by “closed-loop” private solutions, such as proprietary stablecoins or Big Tech platforms, that do not interoperate, fragmenting the monetary system and threatening the “singleness” of currencies.

J.P. Morgan’s Khan counters that interoperability between deposit tokens and other digital cash will be essential for scale and adoption.

“We are proactively working with other actors in the industry, such as DBS in Singapore, to develop a framework for interbank tokenized deposit transfers across multiple blockchains,” he says. “This would potentially allow the institutional client bases of each bank to pay each other, exchanging or redeeming their deposit tokens across either bank’s platform and across borders with real-time, around-the-clock availability.”

For example, a J.P. Morgan institutional client would be able to pay a DBS institutional client using JPM Coin on the Base public blockchain, which the recipient could exchange or redeem for equivalent value via DBS Token Services.

“This aims to uphold the singleness of money,” Khan argues, “where deposit tokens across banks and blockchains are fungible and represent the same value: a key principle that is imperative in an increasingly multi-chain, multi-issuer world.”

The Clearing House, which owns and operates core payments system infrastructure in the US, is currently discussing and analyzing stablecoins and tokenized deposits. President and CEO David Watson suggests that tokenized deposits could be a more significant development than stablecoins, especially for large multinational corporations and wholesale banking.

That’s because tokenized deposits are viewed as “truly a fiat instrument,” he argues, while a stablecoin is merely a “representation of an instrument.” This directly impacts the risk profile for corporate treasurers. “If you’re a multinational corporate treasurer,” Watson asks, “how much of the company’s balance sheet are you willing to hold in different stablecoins, with all that exposure, versus fiat money backed by the issuing government?”

The concerns about trust and risk that Watson highlights, directly inform initiatives like JPM Coin, which Khan notes was driven by clients seeking to make public blockchain payments using a trusted, familiar bank product. With Kinexys Digital Payments, treasurers can pre-define rules that automatically trigger payments, foreign exchange conversions, and liquidity movements in real time. Decisions are executed without manual intervention and are not subject to banking cut-off times.

BMW Group uses Kinexys Programmable Payments for fully pre-programmed euro-to-US-dollar FX transactions and corresponding fund movements. Since both the FX and payment settlement occur instantly on the same blockchain platform, the process operates 24/7 without human intervention or traditional settlement windows. This allows BMW to optimize global liquidity, reduce idle balances, and execute near-instant, multi-currency cross-border payments.

The traditional method for large multinational corporations to manage liquidity—relying on extensive multi-currency buffers and manual fund transfers—is inherently capital-inefficient and complex, Khan contends. Blockchain-based infrastructure, by contrast, offers a fundamental shift, enabling a new, more dynamic model that moves beyond the limitations of conventional settlement windows.

“We are going to see a new paradigm emerge,” McLaughlin predicts. “We are going to move from the age of bank accounts to the age of tokens, chains, and wallets.”

Caracas, February 15, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump is considering a visit to Venezuela, though he did not specify when the trip might take place or what agenda it would entail.

“I’m going to make a visit to Venezuela,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday. 

The US President addressed the press ahead of a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to meet soldiers who participated in the January 3 military attacks against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Questioned by a journalist, Trump stated that Washington recognizes the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s legitimate authority.

“We are dealing with them, and they have done a great job,” he stated. The White House refused comment on whether the recognition was the administration’s official stance.

In 2019, the first Trump administration recognized the self-proclaimed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate authority, prompting the Maduro government to sever diplomatic ties. The US later transferred its recognition to the defunct opposition-controlled National Assembly whose term expired in January 2021.

Since the January 3 attacks, Caracas and Washington have fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement, with US Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu arriving in the Caribbean nation in early February. An official recognition of the Rodríguez acting government could pave the way for the restructuring of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt.

In his Friday press remarks, Trump further described relations with Venezuelan leaders as being “as good as one could hope for,” and added that “the relationship with Venezuela today is a 10.”

Trump additionally highlighted progress in Venezuela’s oil sector.

“Oil is flowing, and other nations are paying a lot of money for it, and we are handling it. We are refining it,” he said. Since January, the White House has imposed control of Venezuelan oil exports, with proceeds deposited in bank accounts in Qatar before being partly rerouted to Caracas under US-set conditions.

Earlier last week, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez emphasized in an NBC interview that Maduro remains the country’s legitimate president. She also disclosed that she has spoken twice with Trump and has had “more frequent” contact with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and expressed “gratitude” for the “respectful and courteous” nature of the talks.

Venezuela’s acting president went on to announce that she has likewise been invited to visit the US. “We are considering going once we establish cooperation and can move forward with everything,” she said.

The invitation reportedly arose during a recent visit to Caracas by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was hosted by Rodríguez at Miraflores Palace on Wednesday. 

Wright and Rodríguez later toured the Petroindependencia crude upgrader, a mixed venture between Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA and Chevron, in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

The Trump administration official announced that Chevron would invest US $100 million to modernize operational facilities, with the goal of “doubling [Petroindependencia’s] productive capacity within 12 to 18 months and quintupling it within five years.” Petroindependencia has a current output of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

US issues new oil licenses

Following Wright’s Venezuela visit, the US Treasury Department issued two general licenses, 49 and 50, aimed at boosting conditions for Western multinational corporations to operate in Venezuela’s energy sector.

The first license allows for the negotiation and signing of future investment contracts, contingent upon the potential issuance of a specific license. The second waiver authorizes Chevron, BP, Eni, Shell, and Repsol to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity.

Repsol (Spain) and Eni (Italy), like Chevron, participate in oil and gas joint ventures in the South American country, whereas the UK-headquartered Shell and BP are set to lead offshore natural gas projects alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) in Venezuelan waters. 

However, GL50 requires that any contracts fall under US jurisdiction and mandates that all payments to “blocked” entities—as sanctions against PDVSA and Venezuela’s banking system remain in place—be made to accounts designated by the US Treasury.

It also explicitly prohibits transactions involving any person or entity linked to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or China, as well as vessels sanctioned by Washington.

The Trump administration has loosened restrictions against the Venezuelan energy sector, including allowing the import of US diluents, inputs and technology, following a recent pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform granted expanded benefits for private corporations, including reduced fiscal responsibilities and expanded control over operations and sales.

Upon leaving Caracas, Energy Secretary Wright claimed that “structural reforms” would continue in Venezuela, with changes to “labor laws, the court system and the banking system.”

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz from Caracas.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has faced questions from the United States Senate about President Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign to slash interest rates, despite concerns that such a move could turbo-charge inflation.

Bessent appeared on Thursday before the Senate’s Financial Stability Oversight Council.

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There, he received a grilling from Democrats over rising consumer prices and concerns about Trump’s attempts to influence the Federal Reserve, the US central bank.

One of his early clashes came with Senator Elizabeth Warren, who sought answers about a report in The Wall Street Journal that indicated Trump joked about suing his nominee for the Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, if he failed to comply with presidential demands.

“Mr Secretary, can you commit right here and now that Trump’s Fed nominee Kevin Warsh will not be sued, will not be investigated by the Department of Justice, if he doesn’t cut interest rates exactly the way that Donald Trump wants?” Warren asked.

Bessent evaded making such a commitment. “That is up to the president,” he replied.

Pressure on Federal Reserve members

Last week, Trump announced Warsh would be his pick to replace the current Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, who has faced bitter criticism over his decision to lower interest rates gradually.

By contrast, Trump has repeatedly demanded that interest rates be chopped as low as possible, as soon as possible.

In December, for instance, he told The Wall Street Journal that he would like to see interest rates at “one percent and maybe lower than that”.

“We should have the lowest rate in the world,” he told the newspaper. Currently, the federal interest rate sits around 3.6 percent.

Experts say a sudden drop in that percentage could trigger a short-term market surge, as loans become cheaper and money floods the economy. But that excess cash could drive down the value of the dollar, leading to higher prices in the long term.

Traditionally, the Federal Reserve has served as an independent government agency, on the premise that monetary decisions for the country should be made without political interference or favour.

But Trump, a Republican, has sought to bring the Federal Reserve under his control, and his critics have accused him of using the threat of legal action to pressure Federal Reserve members to comply with his demands.

In August, for instance, he attempted to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook based on allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied.

Cook had been appointed to the central bank by Trump’s predecessor and rival, Democrat Joe Biden, and she has accused Trump of seeking her dismissal on political grounds. The Supreme Court is currently hearing the case.

Then, in early January, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Powell, echoing accusations Trump made, alleging that Powell had mismanaged renovations to the Federal Reserve building.

Powell issued a rare statement in response, accusing Trump of seeking to bully Federal Reserve leaders into compliance with his interest rate policy.

“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President,” Powell wrote.

Bipartisan scrutiny of Powell probe

Given the string of aggressive actions against Powell and Cook, Trump’s joke about suing Warsh fuelled rumours that the Federal Reserve’s independence could be in peril.

Within hours of making the joke on January 31, Trump himself faced questions about how serious he might have been.

“It’s a roast. It’s a comedy thing,” Trump said of his remarks as he spoke to reporters on Air Force One. “It was all comedy.”

Warren, however, pressed Bessent about Trump’s remarks and chided the Treasury chief for not rejecting them.

“I don’t think the American people are laughing,” Warren told Bessent. “They’re the ones who were struggling with the affordability.”

The prospect of Trump exerting undue influence over the Federal Reserve even earned a measure of bipartisan criticism during Thursday’s council meeting.

Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, opened his remarks to Bessent with a statement denouncing the probe into Powell, even though he acknowledged he was “disappointed” with the current Fed chair.

Still, Tillis emphasised his belief that Powell committed no crime, and that the investigation would discourage transparency at future Senate hearings.

He imagined future government hearings becoming impeded by legal formalities, for fear of undue prosecution.

“They’re going to be flanked with attorneys, and anytime that they think that they’re in the middle of a perjury trap, they’re probably just going to say, ‘I’ll submit it to the record after consultation with my attorneys,’” Tillis said, sketching out the scenario.

“Is that really the way we want oversight to go in the future?”

For his part, Bessent indicated that he backed the Federal Reserve’s long-term goal to keep interest rates at about 2 percent.

“It is undesirable to completely eliminate inflation,” Bessent said. “What is desirable is to get back to the Fed’s 2 percent target, and for the past three months, we’ve been at 2.1 percent.”

Scrutinising the lawsuit against the IRS

As Thursday’s hearing continued, Bessent was forced to defend the Trump administration on several fronts, ranging from its sweeping tariff policy to its struggle to lower consumer prices.

But another element of Trump’s agenda took centre stage when Democrat Ruben Gallego of Arizona had his turn at the microphone.

Gallego sought to shine a light on the revelation in January that Trump had filed a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) — part of his own executive branch.

Trump is seeking $10bn in damages for the leak of his tax returns during his first term as president. The IRS itself was not the source of the leak, but rather a former government contractor named Charles Littlejohn, who was sentenced to five years in prison.

Bessent was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, though he currently serves both as the Treasury secretary and the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service.

Critics have argued that Trump’s lawsuit amounts to self-dealing: He holds significant sway over the Justice Department, which would defend the federal government against such lawsuits, and he could therefore green-light his own settlement package.

In Thursday’s exchange with Gallego, Bessent acknowledged that any damages paid to Trump would come from taxpayer funds.

“ Where would that $10bn come from?” Gallego asked.

“ It would come from Treasury,” Bessent replied. He then underscored that Trump has indicated any money would go to charity and that the Treasury itself would not make the decision to award damages.

Still, Gallego pressed Bessent, pointing out that the Treasury would ultimately have to disburse the funds — and that Bessent would be in charge of that decision.

That circumstance, Gallego argued, creates a conflict of interest, since Bessent is Trump’s political appointee and can be fired by the president.

“Have you recused yourself from any decisions about paying the president on these claims?” Gallego asked.

Bessent sidestepped the question, answering instead, “I will follow the law.”

Jan. 30 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s presidential office said Friday that financial authorities are in close communication with the U.S. Treasury Department after Washington redesignated South Korea on its foreign exchange monitoring list.

The office said the Treasury reaffirmed in its latest currency report that the recent weakening of the won was not consistent with South Korea’s economic fundamentals.

At the same time, the office said it understood the redesignation was made in a “mechanical” way based on the Treasury’s evaluation criteria.

South Korea was removed from the monitoring list in November 2023 after being listed since April 2016, but was added back in November 2024 and remained on the list in the latest report, according to the office and South Korean media reports.

The Treasury cited South Korea’s sharply larger current account surplus and its expanded goods and services surplus with the United States as reasons it continues to warrant monitoring, the report said.

In the January report, the Treasury said its monitoring list includes 10 economies: China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260130010013828

United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent speaks as US President Donald J Trump participates in a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday, January 29, 2026. Photo by Aaron Schwartz/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 29 (Asia Today) — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that Washington does not recognize any trade agreement with South Korea unless it is ratified by the South Korean National Assembly, reaffirming that higher tariffs would remain in place until legislative approval is secured.

In an interview with CNBC, Bessent said the absence of parliamentary ratification meant no valid agreement existed between the two countries.

“Because the South Korean National Assembly has not passed the trade agreement, there is no trade agreement with South Korea until they approve it,” Bessent said, repeatedly emphasizing the need for lawmakers to ratify the deal.

Asked whether South Korea would face 25% tariffs until ratification, Bessent replied, “I think that helps move the situation forward,” a comment widely interpreted as signaling tariff pressure aimed at accelerating legislative action.

His remarks clarified the backdrop to Donald Trump’s announcement Sunday that the United States planned to raise reciprocal tariffs on South Korean exports, including automobiles, timber and pharmaceuticals, from 15% to 25%.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the South Korean legislature had failed to enact what he described as a “historic trade agreement.” No executive order or formal notice has yet been issued to implement the tariff increase.

Trump later suggested negotiations could still resolve the issue, saying Monday that Washington would “work with South Korea to find a solution.”

Pressure from the Trump administration has extended beyond tariffs. The Wall Street Journal reported that Washington has raised concerns over South Korea’s regulatory treatment of U.S. technology companies. According to the report, J.D. Vance told South Korean Prime Minister Kim Min-seok during a White House meeting last week that the administration wanted meaningful de-escalation in how U.S. tech firms are regulated.

South Korea has fully mobilized its trade channels to assess Washington’s intentions. Trade Minister Kim Jeong-kwan is scheduled to travel to Washington later Tuesday after completing meetings in Canada, where he is expected to meet U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. Trade Negotiations Commissioner Yeo Han-koo also plans consultations with the U.S. trade representative.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260129010013312

Jan. 26 (UPI) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that the department canceled all contracts with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton because of a data leak that included President Donald Trump‘s tax returns.

The department has 31 contracts with Booz Allen for a total of $4.8 million in annual spending and $21 million in total obligations, a press release said.

“President Trump has entrusted his cabinet to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and canceling these contracts is an essential step to increasing Americans’ trust in government,” Bessent said in a statement.

Between 2018 and 2020, a Booz Allen employee, Charles Edward Littlejohn, “stole and leaked the confidential tax returns and return information of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers.”

The breach affected about 406,000 taxpayers, including Trump, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

“Booz Allen failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service,” Bessent said.

Littlejohn pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one charge of disclosure of tax return information and was sentenced to five years in prison. He admitted to leaking Trump’s tax information to The New York Times and leaking other tax information to ProPublica.

Booz Allen’s stock price dipped by 8% on the news, CNBC reported.