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CIMB Settles USD 342M in Tokenized Sukuk Using Tokenized Deposits in Malaysia
CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad completes Malaysia’s first settlement of tokenized sukuk using tokenized deposits under Bank Negara Malaysia’s regulatory sandbox, marking a key milestone for DLT adoption in Islamic capital markets.
CIMB Islamic Bank Berhad has settled tokenized sukuk using tokenized deposits for the first time in Malaysia, a country that already runs the biggest domestic sukuk market anywhere.
The transaction covered RM1.38 billion, roughly USD 342 million, carved out of a larger RM1.68 billion issuance under CIMB’s broader RM10 billion Senior Sukuk Wakalah Program, a Wakalah being an Islamic agency arrangement. A dozen institutional buyers took part, and the paper on offer carried maturities running from five years out to fifteen.
Tokenization was used purely as a settlement mechanism here. Neither the economic terms nor the Shariah compliance of the underlying instruments changed as a result. CIMB also issued an additional RM300 million as traditional sukuk alongside the tokenized tranche, giving a direct side-by-side comparison of how each performs.
The regulatory sandbox behind it
The pilot ran inside Bank Negara Malaysia’s sandbox for this kind of experimentation, its Digital Asset Innovation Hub, known internally as DAIH. That sandbox is currently hosting three separate initiatives this year focused on ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits, and the central bank has said it wants proper rules covering these asset types locked in before 2026 wraps up.
CIMB isn’t stopping at DAIH either. The bank is also in talks with Malaysia’s Securities Commission about pushing tokenized capital market products further, which suggests Malaysia is building this out as a joined-up regulatory push rather than a series of one-off pilots.
Also read: What Is Asset Tokenization, How It Works, and What the Law Requires
Why Malaysia is the proving ground
There’s a reason this is being tried in Malaysia first. The country holds just over half of the entire ringgit-denominated sukuk market worldwide (50.6%) and captures well over half of all sukuk issued across Southeast Asia (57.3%). Against a global sukuk market currently worth around USD 1.37 trillion, one expected to more than triple to USD 4.19 trillion by 2034 at roughly 12.5% growth a year, the real question for institutional players is whether tokenized settlement can hold up at that kind of scale.
The Shariah compliance side doesn’t change in any of this. Tokenization does one job: moving the settlement along. It doesn’t touch the financial terms or the Islamic legal principles the sukuk is built on.
A bigger fight over stablecoins vs. tokenized deposits
This pilot fits into a wider argument playing out in digital finance. At Jackson Hole, the Bank for International Settlements’ General Manager, Pablo Hernández de Cos, argued that stablecoins don’t hold up against the basic criteria that define real money. His institution’s preferred alternative is tokenized deposits for settling transactions between banks and other large institutions.
Bank Negara Malaysia appears to be leaning the same way. Its innovation sandbox is putting weight behind tokenized deposits and a ringgit-backed stablecoin framework of its own, rather than betting on stablecoins as the default settlement rail.
What this means for digital asset and Islamic finance market entrants
A pilot like this signals where Malaysia’s regulatory posture on tokenized instruments is headed well before formal rules land at the end of 2026. For any founder or institution looking at Shariah-compliant digital asset products, tokenized sukuk, or DLT-based settlement in Southeast Asia, the gap between what a sandbox permits and what a finalized regulatory framework requires is the place of legal and licensing risk.
LegalBison has a direct presence in Malaysia, one of the firm’s physical office locations, providing on-the-ground regulatory engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. For projects weighing entry into Malaysia’s sukuk, tokenization, or broader Islamic finance markets, that local depth is what turns a promising pilot environment into a structure that survives the transition to formal regulation.
