VersaBank starts selling tokenized U.S. dollar deposits. The release gives no volumes; its last quarter shows what it costs

VersaBank said on October 15 it has started the commercial phase of VUSD, interest paying tokenized U.S. dollar deposits issued by VersaBank USA. It calls them "FDIC insurance-eligible," says the money will go "initially" into "zero risk-weighted U.S. treasury bills," and plans to list VUSD on digital asset exchanges "as soon as feasible." The bank says it can "freeze, seize and burn" tokens that regulators find are used illegally.

What the release leaves out

No launch date, no deposits taken, no customer count and no exchange named.

What the last quarter shows

VersaBank's third quarter results (to July 31) reported net income of C$10.1 million against C$6.6 million a year earlier, revenue of C$38.8 million, total assets of C$6.9 billion and U.S. receivable purchase assets of US$793 million. The CET1 ratio fell to 11.47% from 13.56%. The only tokenized deposit figure in that release is C$600,000 of commercialization costs booked in the second quarter. No deposit volumes are given.

Why it matters

Tokenized deposits are a real product line for a listed bank, which makes the absence of numbers notable. The first useful figure will be how much VUSD is outstanding.

Sources: VersaBank, October 15; VersaBank Q3 results.