# Fnality: interbank settlement in central bank money > Fnality is a payment system in Bank of England money: DLT settlement between banks, 2023 launch, Series C with Bank of America and Citi, dollar plans. Author: Gordey Bolotko — Partner, Corporate & Commercial (https://wiki.private.law/en/authors/bolotko) Last modified: 2026-08-14T13:13:00.000Z Canonical: https://wiki.private.law/en/fnality Topics: banking Jurisdictions: uk Functional tags: bank Product tags: banking Semantic tags: bank, banking --- For context, read this profile alongside the [global bank map](https://wiki.private.law/en/banks) and the [financial-licensing map](https://wiki.private.law/en/fintech-license-map). It is a case study in wholesale settlement in central-bank money, not a product recommendation. Primary source: [Fnality](https://fnality.com/home). Interbank payments in sterling have been running over a distributed ledger with settlement in Bank of England money for a third year now: the Sterling Fnality Payment System \(£FnPS\) has [been operating since December 2023](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-commences-initial-phase-of-sterling-payment-operations-in-a-world-first), with the first production transactions carried out by Lloyds, Santander and UBS. For a market where settlement finality decides everything, this is a quiet revolution — Fnality has taken DLT into the most conservative layer of the financial system, the central bank's balance sheet. In 2026 the project is aiming beyond London. The [$136mn Series C](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-raises-136-million-in-series-c-funding) of 23.09.2025 was raised for the dollar and euro systems, an application for a Fed account has been filed, and the Fed's May NPRM on payment accounts showed that the American regulator is seriously discussing wider access to its payment infrastructure. For holders of large accounts this is an indicator of how their banks are rebuilding settlement. ## Background The story begins in 2015 with the Utility Settlement Coin — a research project by UBS and the blockchain studio Clearmatics on a "settlement coin" for banks. Over four years Barclays, Santander, Credit Suisse and others joined USC, and in June 2019 the consortium was incorporated as Fnality International with a £50mn Series A from 14 banks. After that, capital arrived as milestones were hit. A £77.7mn Series B \(≈$95mn\) closed in November 2023 under the lead of Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas — a month before the sterling system went live. The $136mn Series C \(£99.7mn\) was co-led by WisdomTree, Bank of America, Citi, KBC Group, Temasek and Tradeweb; among existing shareholders, Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, UBS, ING, State Street, DTCC, Euroclear and Nasdaq Ventures topped up. Across three rounds that is ≈$295mn. The shareholder map after Series C — 24 institutions — is effectively a ready-made client base. At the core are global banks: Santander, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Lloyds, ING, State Street, BNY Mellon, CIBC, Commerzbank, KBC, Bank of America, Citi and the Japanese bloc of Mizuho, MUFG, SMBC and Nomura. Around them sit market infrastructure \(DTCC, Euroclear, Nasdaq Ventures, Tradeweb\) and the financial investors Temasek and WisdomTree. The captain has changed too. The founding CEO was Rhomaios Ram of Deutsche Bank; in December 2024 the company announced the appointment of Michelle Neal — she came from the New York Fed, where she headed the Markets Group, and before that worked at BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank and Nomura. She took office in the first quarter of 2025 and remains CEO as of August 2026; the British operator of £FnPS, Fnality UK, is run by Angus Fletcher. Hiring the person responsible for the Fed's open market operations reads as a direct bid for the dollar market. ## Products and pricing There is essentially one product — a settlement system in central bank money — and its heart lies on the regulator's balance sheet. The Bank of England announced its omnibus account policy in April 2021, and Fnality was [one of the first to apply](https://fnality.com/news/omnibus-account): participants fund a shared account at the Bank of England through RTGS, the operator Fnality UK holds that account, and a digital representation of the funds appears on the ledger, backed 1:1. Payments between participants settle atomically and finally, including outside RTGS operating hours — the system is built for 24/7, supports earmarking \(reserving funds for a specific settlement\) and DvP. Commercial bank credit risk is absent from the design by construction; access is open only to institutions already admitted to settlement in central bank money. The legal frame was completed in two steps. In August 2022 HM Treasury recognised £FnPS as a systemically important payment system, which placed it under Bank of England oversight, and [on 16 December 2024](https://fnality.com/news/sterling-fnality-payment-system-receives-settlement-finality-designation) the system received settlement finality designation — a completed settlement is legally protected even if a participant goes bankrupt. £FnPS remains the UK's only DLT system with that status. On top of basic wholesale payments come the scenarios where minutes are expensive. In [May 2025](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-joins-osttra-and-baton-systems-fx-pvp-network-to-expand-settlement-choice-and-bolster-liquidity-efficiencies) Fnality joined the OSTTRA and Baton Systems FX PvP network as its first digital settlement leg: the network provides atomic exchange of currency legs outside CLS and normal hours, and 12 major banks took part in trialling it. Intraday repo is moving forward with HQLAx: in December 2022 a pilot with Santander, Goldman Sachs and UBS demonstrated cross-chain DvP between Corda and enterprise Ethereum; in June 2024 [end-to-end testing was completed](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-and-hqlax-complete-e2e-testing-of-cross-chain-intraday-repo-settlement) and an application was filed with the Bank of England for permission to settle repo in hours rather than the standard two days. In April 2025 Broadridge agreed to connect intraday repo using its DLR platform, and Fnality's rails are being integrated into the [DTCC Digital Launchpad](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-integrates-its-cutting-edge-payment-rail-with-dtcc-digital-launchpad). A live example of onboarding is BNP Paribas: the bank [joined £FnPS in July 2025](https://fnality.com/news/bnp-paribas-participates-in-world-first-regulated-dlt-based-wholesale-payment-system) and immediately made an on-chain payment on an interest rate swap with Lloyds. Pricing is not public \(as of August 2026\), and that is a deliberate utility model: users and shareholders largely overlap, access is open only to regulated participant banks, and the fee for settlement services is secondary. The main economics for a bank is the release of intraday liquidity, smaller buffers against settlement risk and a round-the-clock settlement window; the fee schedule is set inside the consortium and is not published. ## Competitive landscape The closest neighbour in ambition is Singapore's Partior, created by DBS, J.P. Morgan and Temasek, later joined by Standard Chartered. Partior closed an $80mn Series B with Deutsche Bank taking part, and settles multi-currency in USD, EUR and SGD; in September 2025 Deutsche Bank made its first euro payment through it. The fundamental difference: Partior settles in commercial bank money — tokenised liabilities of the settlement banks, whose credit risk remains. Kinexys by J.P. Morgan \(Onyx until November 2024\) is a single bank's ledger: JPM deposit tokens, daily volumes in the billions of dollars and cumulative turnover in the trillions. It is powerful but private infrastructure: settlement remains a claim on J.P. Morgan. Britain's RTGS Global attacks the cross-border angle — instant liquidity exchange anchored in funds held within central bank systems, with the network claiming support for another 23 currencies, although it holds no payment system status on the level of £FnPS. In parallel the Bank of England itself is renewing the core of its RTGS and experimenting with synchronised settlement — for Fnality that is both competition and confirmation of the chosen direction. Against that backdrop Fnality's position is unique: the only DLT system combining settlement specifically in central bank money, recognised payment system status and settlement finality designation. Competitors scale faster because they do without central bank decisions; the price of that speed is the credit risk of commercial balance sheets. ## What it means for the client There is no direct access here for a private client or their holding structure: Fnality is a purely interbank utility. It is worth watching as an indicator of where large banks are moving wholesale liquidity and how they are modernising treasury. If the banks where a structure holds accounts are connected to rails like these, the benefit arrives indirectly: faster settlement, lower intraday risk, and large FX and repo operations completing with the finality of central bank money. At a review of the banking shelf it is fair to ask which systems the bank uses for wholesale settlement, whether it is a shareholder in Fnality or Partior, and whether it plans to connect to £FnPS or to the future dollar system. Participation in such consortia is an indirect marker of the maturity of a bank's treasury. ## Under the hood Technologically £FnPS is a permissioned network of the Ethereum family: the technology partner is Adhara, and Fnality itself is an [active member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance](https://fnality.com/news/fnality-and-ethereum-alliance). Compatibility with other ledgers has been proven in practice: cross-chain DvP with HQLAx's Corda platform was done back in the 2022 pilot, as an atomic link between two ledgers without a shared "bridge". The institutional assembly is heavier than the technical one. Each currency requires a separate central bank decision: in the UK that took years of negotiation and the omnibus policy of 2021; in the US Fnality is pursuing an innovation bank charter in Connecticut \(public hearings took place in March 2025\) and awaiting the Fed's decision on a joint account — the analogue of the London omnibus account for the Dollar Fnality Payment System. Back in spring 2025 Santander was hoping for approval "by the end of the year"; as of August 2026 there is no public decision. The context, though, has shifted. On 20 May 2026 the Fed issued an NPRM on payment accounts — "narrow" non-interest-bearing accounts with individual caps of up to $1bn and access to Fedwire, FedNow and the National Settlement Service; a day earlier came an executive order on fintech access to the Fed's payment infrastructure, with comments accepted until 27.07.2026. Fnality's application runs on a different track — a joint account for a regulated bank — but the general vector towards wider access to the Fed's balance sheet plays in the project's favour. The lesson for a builder: entry into central bank money settlement is paid for in time and in the composition of the shareholder base. Eight years passed from the USC idea of 2015 to live payments, along with three rounds totalling ≈$295mn and years of dialogue with the Bank of England; a consortium of two dozen global banks is simultaneously a source of capital, a client base and regulatory capital of trust. Without a line-up like that, the conversation with a central bank about access to its balance sheet simply does not start. ## Regulation and status Milestones: August 2022 — HM Treasury recognises £FnPS as a systemically important payment system, under Bank of England oversight; December 2023 — the first live payments by Lloyds, Santander and UBS through the omnibus account; 16 December 2024 — settlement finality designation, the UK's only DLT system with that status; Q1 2025 — Michelle Neal takes office as CEO; July 2025 — the onboarding of BNP Paribas; 23.09.2025 — a $136mn Series C for dollar and euro expansion. Open items as of August 2026: Bank of England permission for intraday repo \(the application was filed in summer 2024, with no public confirmation of a production launch so far\) and the Fed's decision on a joint account for the dollar system — against the backdrop of the May 2026 NPRM on payment accounts, which widens access to the regulator's payment infrastructure. > ⚠️ **Risks.** Regulatory: the dollar system depends entirely on the Fed's decision on a joint account — the application has been pending since 2025, and the NPRM on payment accounts does not resolve it directly. Infrastructural: concentrating wholesale settlement on one platform creates a systemically important point of failure, which the recognised payment system status itself acknowledges. Commercial: Partior and Kinexys grow faster by working in commercial bank money without waiting for central banks; the Bank of England, meanwhile, is developing its own RTGS. The compliance load stays with the participant banks: the network is closed, and every payment passes through their sanctions filters. > 🍓 Fnality moved interbank settlement in central bank money onto DLT: the sterling system has been live since December 2023, the settlement finality designation since 16.12.2024, and its 24 shareholders include Goldman Sachs, UBS, Bank of America and Citi. The $136mn Series C \(23.09.2025\) was raised for the dollar and euro launches; the key is the Fed's decision on a joint account. For the client the system serves as a quality marker for the banking shelf; for the builder, an honest price tag on the consortium model: eight years from idea to launch and ≈$295mn of capital. ## FAQ ### Can you open an account with Fnality? The system serves participant banks exclusively, through the omnibus account at the Bank of England, and admits only institutions entitled to settle in central bank money. Private clients and corporate structures get the effect indirectly — through the speed and reliability of their own banks' settlement. ### Why is settlement in central bank money safer than the usual kind? A claim on the central bank is free of commercial bank credit risk, and the settlement finality designation \(16.12.2024\) legally protects a completed settlement from challenge even if a participant goes bankrupt. For FX PvP and intraday repo that closes the key counterparty risk. ### When will the dollar version appear? The Series C proceeds are directed at the dollar and euro systems; in the US Fnality is pursuing an innovation bank charter in Connecticut and awaiting the Fed's decision on a joint account. The context is encouraging: on 20.05.2026 the Fed issued an NPRM on payment accounts discussing wider access to its payment infrastructure, though no timeline for a decision on the application itself has been named publicly. ### How does Fnality differ from Partior and Kinexys? Partior and Kinexys settle in commercial bank money — tokenised liabilities of commercial banks, so the issuer's credit risk remains. Fnality is the only DLT system with settlement in central bank money, recognised payment system status and settlement finality designation; the price of that purity is a pace set by regulators. ### How much does participation in the system cost? There are no public tariffs \(as of August 2026\): Fnality is a closed utility where the users are simultaneously the shareholders and terms are set inside the consortium. The economics for a bank come from released intraday liquidity, lower settlement risk and a round-the-clock window; the company does not report publicly on transaction fees. --- ## FAQ ### Can you open an account with Fnality? The system serves participant banks exclusively, through the omnibus account at the Bank of England, and admits only institutions entitled to settle in central bank money. Private clients and corporate structures get the effect indirectly — through the speed and reliability of their own banks' settlement. ### Why is settlement in central bank money safer than the usual kind? A claim on the central bank is free of commercial bank credit risk, and the settlement finality designation (16.12.2024) legally protects a completed settlement from challenge even if a participant goes bankrupt. For FX PvP and intraday repo that closes the key counterparty risk. ### When will the dollar version appear? The Series C proceeds are directed at the dollar and euro systems; in the US Fnality is pursuing an innovation bank charter in Connecticut and awaiting the Fed's decision on a joint account. The context is encouraging: on 20.05.2026 the Fed issued an NPRM on payment accounts discussing wider access to its payment infrastructure, though no timeline for a decision on the application itself has been named publicly. ### How does Fnality differ from Partior and Kinexys? Partior and Kinexys settle in commercial bank money — tokenised liabilities of commercial banks, so the issuer's credit risk remains. Fnality is the only DLT system with settlement in central bank money, recognised payment system status and settlement finality designation; the price of that purity is a pace set by regulators. ### How much does participation in the system cost? There are no public tariffs (as of August 2026): Fnality is a closed utility where the users are simultaneously the shareholders and terms are set inside the consortium. The economics for a bank come from released intraday liquidity, lower settlement risk and a round-the-clock window; the company does not report publicly on transaction fees. --- ## Factual claims - In 2026 the project is aiming beyond London. - The story begins in 2015 with the Utility Settlement Coin — a research project by UBS and the blockchain studio Clearmatics on a "settlement coin" for banks. - The shareholder map after Series C — 24 institutions — is effectively a ready-made client base. - Pricing is not public (as of August 2026), and that is a deliberate utility model: users and shareholders largely overlap, access is open only to regulated participant banks, and the fee for settlement services is secondary.