Monument Bank Targets November for £250M Midnight Deposit Launch

Monument Bank is targeting November for the rollout of tokenized retail deposits on Midnight after resolving a custody bottleneck that delayed the project by several months. Founder Mintoo Bhandari said the bank has selected a Canadian custodian capable of meeting the requirements of the service, although the provider has not yet been publicly identified.

The rollout would move Monument’s Midnight partnership from development toward a customer-facing banking product. The first phase targets up to £250 million in deposits, represented digitally on Midnight while remaining backed by funds held at Monument, redeemable in pounds sterling and covered by existing deposit protections.

Custody Bottleneck Pushes Monument Toward November

Monument and the Midnight Foundation announced the initiative in March, presenting it as an effort to bring regulated retail bank deposits onto public blockchain infrastructure. Monument serves more than 100,000 customers and manages approximately £7 billion in deposits.

The project was subsequently delayed by institutional custody requirements. Monument had difficulty finding a UK crypto custodian able to meet the necessary regulatory standards while supporting the privacy technology involved in the Midnight implementation.

Bhandari said the bank ultimately found a suitable provider in Canada and now expects the retail rollout around November.

Charles Hoskinson also recently said Monument was expected to go live with Midnight by the end of the year and identified qualified custody as the main obstacle to deployment.

With a provider selected, the project now moves toward custodian onboarding and completion of the infrastructure required for customer deployment.

£250M in Deposits Will Operate Behind the Monument App

The first phase is based on existing bank deposits rather than the creation of a separate speculative crypto asset.

Each tokenized deposit is designed to correspond one-to-one with pounds held at Monument. Customers are expected to continue earning interest, retain the ability to redeem deposits in GBP and remain covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Users will not be required to buy or manage crypto assets. Monument plans to keep the blockchain layer behind its existing banking experience, allowing customers to interact through the Monument app while Midnight provides the underlying digital infrastructure.

Privacy is central to the implementation. Midnight uses zero-knowledge technology and a dual-state architecture designed to separate publicly verifiable blockchain activity from private information. Monument intends to keep sensitive customer and transaction data shielded while retaining the auditability required for regulated financial services.

Midnight operates as a separate Layer 1 connected to the broader Cardano ecosystem rather than settling transactions directly on Cardano. Its NIGHT governance token originated as a Cardano Native Asset, providing the clearest infrastructure link between the two ecosystems.

Monument Plans Investments and Lending After Tokenized Deposits

The £250 million deposit program is the first stage of a broader rollout.

A second phase is expected to bring tokenized investment products from global asset managers into the Monument app. Earlier plans referenced areas including private equity, commodity funds and structured products, while keeping blockchain interaction largely invisible to customers.

The third phase is designed to introduce Lombard-style lending, allowing customers to borrow against eligible investments without first selling them.

Monument Technology, an affiliate of Monument Bank, also plans to explore offering tokenized deposit infrastructure to other financial institutions through its Banking as a Service platform.

The November target gives the project a specific operational milestone following the delays around custody. Monument has moved from selecting privacy infrastructure to identifying a custody provider, leaving onboarding and the first customer issuance as the next concrete steps toward putting tokenized retail bank deposits into production on Midnight.