Goldman, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley Call Tokenization a Growth Play

Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon was asked on the bank's third-quarter earnings call whether tokenization, decentralized finance and prediction markets could eat into its trading revenue. His answer was that they might do the opposite.

"The developments are obviously creating more products, greater activity, potentially new clients, broader distribution channels," he said.

Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley worked the same ground on their own calls this month, and all three landed in a similar place: tokenization as a way to widen what they already sell, not a replacement for it. The detail under the talking points is more developed at one of them than the others.

Wells Fargo Moves Money in Two Minutes

Wells Fargo's most concrete use is cross-border payments. The bank is running them on tokenized deposits, and chief financial officer Michael Santomassimo said the money now gets "from initiation to beneficiary account in 2 minutes or less."

"This is in production, by the way, and it's small volume so far," he said.

The pitch is about reach as much as speed. Wells Fargo does not have the international branch network of the largest global banks, and Santomassimo said tokenized deposits let it chase cross-border business without having to build one. The bank will start with a limited US dollar to British pound corridor and widen it through 2027.

What the service actually runs on is less clear. Wells Fargo has not named the blockchain behind its tokenized deposits, or said whether the ledger is permissioned.

Goldman's Own Rails and a DTCC Test

Goldman has been at this longer than one call would suggest. It built GS DAP, its own platform for tokenized assets, as far back as 2022, and has worked on tokenizing bonds, money market funds and real estate.

In July the bank took part in a half-day run of a tokenization service from the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, the utility that handles much of the plumbing behind US securities markets and processes quadrillions of dollars of transactions a year.

Solomon was careful about scale. "I'd say the activity so far is small and at the margin," he said.

Morgan Stanley Keeps Advice in the Frame

Morgan Stanley's contribution was the shortest. Chief financial officer Sharon Yeshaya described tokenization as a change in how assets move rather than a new line of business.

"The tokenized world means it is faster and easier to move assets around, and you will need advice," she said.

That is a positioning statement, not a launch, and it leaves the firm's answer on where the revenue actually comes from for a later call.

Small Volumes, Broad Claims

The language across all three calls was about expansion: more products, more clients, wider distribution. The numbers were about restraint. Solomon called the activity small and at the margin. Santomassimo called Wells Fargo's volume small so far.

That gap is the honest state of bank tokenization in late 2026. The infrastructure is real enough to run live payments and to settle a half-day test with the DTCC, and the banks are willing to say on the record that they expect the business to grow.

Wells Fargo's corridor expansion through 2027 and Goldman's work on the DTCC service are the two places to watch next.