Mastercard, Citi, JPMorgan Test Ledger for Settling Bank Money

Mastercard Inc. is joining with some of the largest US banks to test shared-ledger technology that would allow the common settlement of tokenized assets such as commercial-bank money as well as Treasury and investment-grade debt securities.

The Regulated Settlement Network proof-of-concept will simulate transactions in dollars, Mastercard said in a statement Wednesday. The goal is to make transactions across borders and systems faster and easier, and to reduce the chance of error and fraud.

The ledger technology would likely dramatically change the way things are done in the financial world today. Currently, commercial bank money, wholesale central bank money, and ...