Delayed by Months, Monument Bank's £250M Retail Deposit Tokenization Project Affected by UK Regulatory Issues

Odaily News: Monument Bank has delayed its project to tokenize £250 million (approximately $330 million) in UK retail bank deposits by several months, as the bank was unable to find a local crypto custodian in the UK that meets Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) standards and can handle zero-knowledge privacy proofs. Monument Bank founder Mintoo Bhandari stated that the bank originally planned to tokenize customer deposits on the privacy-focused public blockchain Midnight, and expects it will take another two months, with a launch to retail customers in November. To meet regulatory requirements, the bank has expanded its search for custody partners overseas and has found an FCA-approved Canadian custodian.

Midnight is a privacy-first Layer 1 blockchain project funded by Charles Hoskinson that uses zero-knowledge proofs to keep customer information within Monument's systems while allowing the bank to prove compliance on-chain and provide audit records to regulators. Monument Bank announced the project in March of this year, planning to offer tokenized private equity, structured products, and automated Lombard loans to "mass affluent" customers with investable assets between £50,000 and £5 million. Bhandari stated that customer deposits will continue to earn interest, be fully backed by Monument, redeemable 1:1 for pounds, and protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) up to £120,000 per person or per company.