Domenico Nardelli, AIIB's Treasurer and Acting CFO, indicated in comments reported by the South China Morning Post that digital settlement is on the bank's agenda. "That is a sector that we are exploring with interest," he said, referring to tokenised payments.

The comments come as AIIB, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Beijing, works toward a target of roughly USD 10 billion in total 2026 funding, following a series of heavily oversubscribed bond deals across multiple currencies and markets. The bank counts 109 member states and carries top-tier credit ratings (AAA/Aaa/AAA) from the major rating agencies.

Record Demand, and a Digital Track Record Already in Place

AIIB's 2026 USD benchmark bond, a 10-year USD 1 billion note, pulled in more than USD 14 billion in final orders, a record for the bank. Initial indications of interest stood at USD 9.7 billion before the final book surpassed that figure.

A euro-denominated EUR 1 billion 3-year benchmark was oversubscribed 4.6 times.

In January 2026, AIIB returned to the Hong Kong dollar market with its second so-called "Wonton Bond" (a market nickname for HKD-denominated bonds issued in Hong Kong by offshore entities, in the same naming tradition as Dim Sum bonds for offshore renminbi issuance), a HKD 4 billion, 3-year note that attracted HKD 7.8 billion in demand.

Around 88 percent of those orders came from Hong Kong and mainland China investors, with bank treasuries making up 78 percent of the book.

What makes Nardelli's tokenisation comments credible rather than aspirational is that AIIB has already executed in this space. In August 2024, it became the first Asia-based issuer to place a digitally native note (a bond issued and settled entirely on distributed ledger infrastructure, rather than paper-based or conventional systems) on Euroclear's Digital Financial Market Infrastructure platform.

That deal launched at USD 300 million and was later tapped to USD 500 million total, putting it among the five largest digital bonds ever issued globally at the time.

BMO Capital Markets facilitated the transaction, with Citi also serving as issuing and paying agent.

Hong Kong Is Not a Coincidental Choice

If AIIB does formalise a tokenised payments or settlement pilot, Hong Kong is one of the most logical locations.

The city's monetary authority has been building out one of the most advanced digital bond ecosystems in Asia since 2021, a five-year effort that has expanded progressively from proof-of-concept work to live institutional infrastructure.

In June 2026 alone, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority launched a 21-institution Tokenised Bond Expert Group, with participants including J.P. Morgan, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and HashKey Group, a crypto-native firm that bridges institutional and on-chain markets.

The HKMA has also launched a live 2026 pilot with Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, using the e-HKD wholesale central bank digital currency for 24/7 derivatives margin settlement.

The HKMA's stated priority for its wholesale e-HKD is tokenisation ecosystems and cross-border payment rails. Analysts note that this agenda maps closely onto what AIIB's treasurer is signalling, though neither party has stated a formal connection.

Broader Context: Institutional Tokenisation Is Moving Past Proof-of-Concept

AIIB's interest is part of a wider shift in how major financial institutions think about settlement infrastructure. In May 2026, the Bank for International Settlements completed a real-value test of its Project Agorá platform with JPMorgan, Citi, UBS, and 25 other global banks.

The test settled approximately CHF 800,000 in live cross-border transactions using tokenised central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits, with an average settlement time of roughly 80 seconds. Conventional cross-border interbank payments can take hours or days.

A separate BIS initiative, Project Promissa, demonstrated in 2025 that the paper-based promissory notes multilateral development banks have used since the Bretton Woods era can be tokenised on distributed ledger infrastructure.

The IMF, in an April 2026 policy note on tokenised finance, described the migration toward permissioned institutional ledgers for atomic settlement, continuous liquidity management, and embedded compliance as a structural trend within the regulated financial system.

What This Means for South Asia and Africa

For borrowing member states across South Asia, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, faster capital deployment from AIIB could translate into faster infrastructure project commissioning.

Multi-leg cross-border payment chains currently delay infrastructure drawdowns by weeks; 80-second atomic settlement represents a meaningful operational change.

For African sovereign and quasi-sovereign bond issuers, the near-term impact is more indirect. But the institutional infrastructure being built in Hong Kong could eventually open DLT-based issuance channels that reduce placement costs and widen investor access.

According to data published by CoinPaprika citing Chainalysis, Sub-Saharan Africa received USD 205 billion in on-chain value in the 12 months ending June 2025, up 52 percent year-over-year, with stablecoins accounting for 43 percent of volume. Analysts suggest that base of digital finance activity points to a region with both the need and growing capacity to integrate into these systems as they mature.

What Comes Next

AIIB has not announced a formal tokenised settlement pilot, a timeline, or a specific platform partner beyond its existing Euroclear precedent.

Analysts suggest the bank's next move may depend on how quickly the HKMA's regulatory framework for tokenised bonds, currently under review with input from the June expert group, reaches a form that accommodates multilateral issuer participation.

AIIB is only the second major multilateral development bank, after the World Bank (which participated in BIS Project Promissa, the 2025 initiative demonstrating the tokenisation of MDB promissory notes), to publicly signal movement at the treasury level toward digital settlement.

If a pilot is formalised, the signal to AIIB's 109 member states, many of which are developing economies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, may be difficult to ignore.