Digital asset infrastructure provider Parfin is urging financial institutions to prioritise the sovereignty of their settlement rails as the industry moves toward tokenised commercial bank money. Marcos Viriato, co-founder and CEO of Parfin, explained that the shift toward tokenised deposits is less about immediate payment utility and more about laying the groundwork for banks to operate within a programmable ecosystem.
According to Viriato, the primary hurdle for legacy core banking systems is a structural reliance on silos. Traditional models often use separate systems for deposits, equities, and bonds, creating fragmented operating environments that cannot scale on-chain. Parfin developed Rayls, a permissioned blockchain infrastructure, to address these inefficiencies by embedding privacy and compliance at the protocol level.
“Banks can’t scale on-chain until they break out of legacy system silos,” Viriato said. “The next generation of infrastructure must embed privacy, compliance, and permissioning rather than treat them as afterthoughts. The institutions that get this right won’t just modernise their stack, they’ll fundamentally change how financial infrastructure is built and scaled.”
While stablecoins have gained traction in emerging markets, Viriato noted they serve a different function than tokenised deposits. While stablecoins are assets designed to move across networks, tokenised deposits are bank liabilities used for internal settlement. He believes the two are complementary, with future value depending on seamless interoperability between these different instruments.
The transition to on-chain environments also presents new revenue streams beyond simple cost-cutting. By transitioning ledgers to a programmable environment, FIs can participate directly in on-chain FX, provide liquidity to lending markets, and offer digital asset custody. This enables liquidity to flow freely across geographies and venues rather than being locked in intermediated layers.
Viriato pointed to Brazil’s success with the PIX and Drex initiatives as a blueprint for G7 regulators. He argued that technology is rarely the barrier to adoption; instead, the lack of regulatory clarity creates the uncertainty that stalls institutional commitment.
“What Brazil has done well is create a clear, coordinated framework,” Viriato added. “When you have clear rules around stablecoins and tokenised assets, you remove ambiguity around risk and compliance. Once that clarity is in place, it gives banks the confidence to move from pilots to production and invest in real infrastructure.”
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