Building the future of payments in APAC and MEA through interoperability

The transaction banking landscape across the Asia Pacific (APAC) and Middle East & Africa (MEA) regions is undergoing a fundamental transformation. As corporate clients demand consumer-grade speed, seamless experiences, and continuous access to liquidity, the traditional infrastructure of financial systems is being completely re-engineered.

Domestic instant payment networks are expanding rapidly, blockchain solutions are moving from experimentation towards practical applications, and artificial intelligence is opening new possibilities for automated payment routing and exception management.

According to Rachel Whelan (Deutsche Bank’s APAC & MEA Head of Corporate Cash Management and Global Head of Payments & Transactional FX Product Management), “One of the most significant changes is the expansion and digitisation of instant payments and the emergence of an interconnected payment ecosystem. This is being driven by national digitisation agendas in almost every country and, for most clients, represents the next level of operational efficiency.”

The next challenge is to connect domestic instant payment systems with international banking networks, tokenised money, blockchain-based platforms and traditional clearing infrastructure. For corporate clients, these components should operate as one seamless system, says Whelan.

Increasingly, the expectation extends beyond speed. “Corporate clients want the same certainty, transparency and simplicity they experience as consumers,” she says. They expect payments to be safe, secure and frictionless, with confidence that transactions will arrive when expected and complete successfully regardless of the underlying infrastructure.

Learn more about how cross-border instant payment architecture is taking shape. 

What is driving the next wave of payment innovation?

Governments and regulators across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East are investing heavily in real-time payment infrastructure. These investments form part of broader national efforts to digitise economies, expand financial inclusion and make commercial transactions more efficient.

For companies, instant payment systems can improve working capital, accelerate settlement and provide greater visibility over cash flows. They can also help treasury teams to manage liquidity more dynamically, reducing reliance on traditional banking hours and end-of-day settlement cycles.

“Beyond domestic instant payments, the next frontier is the use of blockchain and tokenised deposits,” says Whelan. “Payment service providers and banks alike want to be part of this ecosystem.”

Financial institutions and corporate clients are exploring how tokenised forms of money could support faster settlement, allow liquidity to move outside conventional market hours and place funding directly on-chain to meet payment obligations.

The proliferation of new platforms creates a central challenge: interoperability.

We are seeing clients build their own blockchain solutions, and the key question now is how these systems will interoperate. This will be the defining storyline for the next few years. Rachel Whelan

Learn more about the digital money landscape, the regulatory and market forces shaping it, and how these changes are affecting financial institutions, corporate treasury and custody models.

Has blockchain delivered on its promise for payments?

Blockchain has demonstrated that value can move between participants over distributed ledger networks. Yet many payment applications remain relatively early-stage.

“Blockchain is primarily solving for the liquidity element, moving value from Singapore to the US or Europe outside standard market hours or over the weekend. But the actual pay-in and payout obligations are still anchored to traditional rails.”

A blockchain network can improve how liquidity moves across networks, but commercial payments still depend on regulated banking infrastructure for account connectivity, compliance screening, domestic clearing and final settlement. “The industry is beginning to recognise that these systems must work together,” says Whelan. “Blockchain cannot operate in isolation.”

Bridging the gap: Deutsche Bank’s approach to interoperability

Market participants initially built blockchain platforms as separate environments from their core banking infrastructure. While this approach demonstrated the potential of distributed ledger technology, wider adoption requires integration with systems that manage accounts, liquidity and settlement, as well as financial crime controls. As a result, standalone platforms can face challenges in accessing liquidity, supporting compliance processes and completing payments into domestic banking systems.

To solve this, Deutsche Bank is moving away from isolated systems toward a fully integrated model. This architecture connects blockchain platforms and tokenised deposits directly to the bank’s core payment network to enable continuous, round-the-clock asset movement.

“A stand-alone network can work for certain use cases, but commercial payments don’t operate in isolation,” Whelan says.

“We are building a 24/7 capability on our new technology stack that will allow clients to move funds around the clock across our global interbranch network, including key corridors such as APAC to Germany, broader Europe and the United States.”

Learn more about how Deutsche Bank aims to coordinate activity across multiple networks, payment methods and forms of money. 

Connecting payments, liquidity and FX across borders

As payment ecosystems become increasingly always-on, treasury teams must also manage cross-currency funding and liquidity outside traditional market hours, Whelan says. This creates a growing need to bring payments, liquidity management and foreign exchange capabilities closer together, enabling corporates to move funds seamlessly across currencies and time zones regardless of when payment obligations arise.

This evolution is also encouraging closer collaboration between transaction banking, FX and capital markets capabilities as banks develop solutions designed to support an increasingly continuous and interconnected global economy.

The future of treasury is unlikely to be defined by a single technology. Instead, success will depend on the ability to seamlessly orchestrate traditional payment rails, instant payment networks, tokenised deposits and emerging digital asset ecosystems. The challenge is not choosing between these infrastructures, but enabling them to work together securely, efficiently and at scale.

Deutsche Bank has been actively exploring this convergence of traditional and digital payment infrastructure. In 2025, the bank signed a platform agreement with Partior to join the blockchain-based network as a euro and US dollar settlement bank, supporting real-time and atomic settlement across tokenised payment flows. More recently, Deutsche Bank also completed its first euro-denominated transaction on the Partior platform, demonstrating how distributed ledger infrastructure can work alongside existing banking systems. 

According to Whelan, “One area to watch is the growing focus on connecting domestic payment infrastructures across borders. Public initiatives involving Europe’s TIPS platform and India’s UPI highlight the potential for more seamless euro-to-INR payment flows in the future.”

In the future, a corporate client may simply initiate a payment from a euro account while the platform manages the funding, foreign exchange and routing before completing the payment through the most appropriate domestic rail in India.

The goal is not simply faster payments. It is to create frictionless trade corridors that support growing economic ties between Europe and Asia.

What role could tokenised deposits play in corporate payments?

In payments, one of tokenisation’s most promising applications is tokenised funding. By placing money on-chain, it could help corporates to meet payment obligations in real time, particularly when liquidity needs to move across jurisdictions or outside standard banking hours.

“The payment use cases will centre on tokenised funding and tokenised money placed on-chain to satisfy real-time payment obligations,” Whelan explains.

The tokenisation capability is being developed through Deutsche Bank’s digital asset and custody expertise. However, its use in payments is intended to remain connected to the bank’s core payment infrastructure.

“The key is that we are not building a separate payment silo,” she adds. “We are connecting tokenised deposits directly to our core payment rails.”

For clients, the choice of infrastructure should not become an additional operational burden: the payment platform should determine whether to use a tokenised deposit, a blockchain network or a conventional account transfer based on the required outcome.

What will define the next generation of payments?

The future of payments will depend on how effectively different payment infrastructures can work together.

Instant payment systems will provide domestic speed. Tokenised deposits could improve the availability and mobility of money. AI will help determine the most efficient route. Established banking infrastructure will continue to provide access to accounts, regulated clearing, liquidity and final settlement.

“The client does not want to worry about whether a payment is moving over blockchain, Swift or a local clearing system,” Whelan concludes. “The client wants a seamless and cost-effective guaranteed outcome.”

The institutions that can integrate these capabilities while making the underlying technology largely invisible will be best placed to support the next era of global payments.

According to Whelan, the future is about abstracting complexity from clients. That vision is also reflected in Deutsche Bank’s participation in Project Agorá, a public-private initiative led by the Bank for International Settlements and several central banks that is exploring how tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank money can support faster and more transparent wholesale cross-border payments. Deutsche Bank recently completed a live treasury payment as part of the project’s real-value testing phase.

How are embedded payments becoming invisible?

As digital commerce ecosystems continue to grow, payments are increasingly being embedded in broader business processes.

Whether supporting marketplaces, payment service providers, supply chains or digital platforms, the payment itself is becoming less visible while the client experience becomes more seamless.

According to Whelan, the future lies in enabling clients to focus on their business outcomes rather than the underlying payment infrastructure.

“The client doesn’t want to think about the rail being used. They simply want the payment to work.”

This shift is creating opportunities for businesses to differentiate themselves through superior customer experiences, develop new revenue streams and participate more effectively in digital ecosystems.

For banks, the role is evolving from that of a payment processor to that of an ecosystem enabler, connecting liquidity, payments, data and technology into a single operating environment.

Deutsche Bank’s role in building the future of payments

Deutsche Bank is actively participating in several initiatives exploring the future of payment infrastructure and interoperability:

• Partior: Supporting real-time and atomic settlement across tokenised payment networks and participating as a EUR and USD settlement bank.
• Project Agorá: Working with central banks and financial institutions to explore how tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank money can support wholesale cross-border payments.
• MAS-Bundesbank initiatives: Supporting broader industry discussions around next-generation cross-border payment infrastructure and interoperability.
• UPI merchant collections: Helping corporate clients simplify merchant collections through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), supporting digital commerce and real-time payment experiences in one of the world's largest payments ecosystems.