🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Ant International uses blockchain rails for treasury and calls the network Whale in other materials

• The CIMB–Ant International announcement uses “blockchain-based treasury management solution” to describe Ant International’s blockchain-based treasury platform, which Ant materials call “Whale”, a multi-bank network that supports tokenised deposit-based fund movements 12.
• Whale keeps the underlying deposits at partner banks, while tokenised representations move on permissioned ledgers (private blockchains where only approved participants can transact); Ant materials name partners such as DBS, HSBC and Standard Chartered 2.
• The MOU states that CIMB will work with Ant International business lines that include Alipay+, Antom and Bettr Treasury 1.
• Bank Negara Malaysia’s Digital Assets Innovation Hub has onboarded three stablecoin and tokenised deposit initiatives for wholesale payment use cases, including projects involving Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Capital A, Maybank, and CIMB 3.

The collaboration targets new corporate treasury workflows and remains exploratory

• Ant International describes its treasury infrastructure as a shared network that sits between corporate treasury teams and multiple banking partners, rather than a single software tool 2.
• Ant materials contrast this with cash management through separate bank portals and bank cut-off times 2.
• Ant has said that in 2024 more than one-third of its global transactions ran on-chain through Whale, with volumes around US$1 trillion 2.
• The CIMB–Ant International agreement is a memorandum of understanding to explore and jointly develop a digital framework, subject to regulatory frameworks and approvals; DBS and Ant International have also signed an MOU to expand their partnership 14.