Following Deutsche Bank’s investment in Partior in November 2024 and the finalisation of a platform agreement in May 2025, the bank has advanced its exploration of blockchain-based payments, completing a successful euro transaction on the Partior platform alongside Singapore’s DBS Bank.

The pilot transaction represents the next stage in advancing the bank’s payments solutions for financial institution (FI) clients.

By recording transactions on a distributed ledger, blockchain technology offers near-instant settlement, improved security, and end-to-end transparency. More efficient interbank settlements also support optimised liquidity management across the industry and enable real-time treasury management for clients’ underlying customers.

Patricia Sullivan, Global Head of Institutional Cash Management at Deutsche Bank said, “We are constantly exploring ways of improving and future-proofing our dbX operating model to deliver maximum benefit for our clients. Our integration with Partior will bring multiple benefits to our FI clients, including more efficient reconciliation processes, reduced payment failure risks and real-time confirmation, as settlement occurs directly on the blockchain.”

“Our integration with Partior will bring multiple benefits to our FI clients, including more efficient reconciliation processes, reduced payment failure risks and real-time confirmation”
Patricia Sullivan, Global Head of Institutional Cash Management, Deutsche Bank

The exploration comes at a time of rapid industry transformation – driven by innovation, evolving regulation, and intergovernmental initiatives such as the G20 Roadmap – alongside mounting customer demand for faster, more transparent, accessible, and cost-effective payments. The result is a landscape of emerging solutions seeking to address these challenges and unlock new opportunities.

“Blockchain is clearly gaining traction in the industry and will form an integral component of how we service our FI clients,” added Ciaran Byrne, Global Head of Product and Client Solutions, Institutional Cash Management at Deutsche Bank. “The next generation of payments is, however, unlikely to be defined by a single solution – and blockchain should be seen as just one part of the broader payments puzzle.”

“Blockchain is clearly gaining traction in the industry and will form an integral component of how we service our FI clients”
Ciaran Byrne, Global Head of Product and Client Solutions, Institutional Cash Management at Deutsche Bank

The consensus across the industry points to the emergence of a hybrid approach: Swift for global reach; APIs for agility and connectivity; and blockchain for efficiency and speed in specific corridors and use cases. Banks that can provide intelligent and negotiated routing across these different rails will be best positioned to deliver greater efficiency and cost savings within this future model.