A group of US regional banks is developing the Cari Network, a tokenized deposit platform built on ZKsync, a layer-2 network, as lenders seek a regulated path to modernize digital payments.
The network, announced Tuesday, is being developed with banks including Huntington Bancshares, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyCorp and Old National Bancorp. It’s designed to let banks turn customer deposits into digital tokens that can move instantly between institutions — without those funds ever leaving the banking system.
This is an important difference from stablecoins, which are often issued by non-banking companies. Cari says its tokens will still represent regular bank deposits, meaning they will remain on banks’ balance sheets and remain subject to existing regulations and FDIC insurance.
Under the hood, the system will run on “Prividium,” which is a private, permissioned blockchain built by Matter Labs, the main developer company building the ZKsync network. Only authorized participants — like banks — can use it, and transactions are designed to be both fast and private, while still allowing lawmakers to audit activity when necessary.
The effort reflects a growing push by banks to compete with crypto-native payment systems by offering similar speed and round-the-clock settlement, but within well-known regulatory safeguards.
The Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America has backed the project, according to a blog post highlighting regional lenders’ interest in upgrading payment infrastructure without risking the loss of deposits to newer digital alternatives.
The Cari network will roll out more widely in 2026, and the banks involved will test how these tokenized deposits are created, transferred between parties and converted back to regular US dollars.
“Banks should lead the next phase of digital money, not react to it,” said Cari CEO Gene Ludwig.
Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski added that the project shows how banks can use blockchain technology while still meeting privacy and compliance requirements.
“Financial infrastructure is going through the same shift that computing went through decades ago, from siled databases to shared, programmable infrastructure,” Gluchowski said in the blog post. “With Prividium, banks can issue and move deposits on blockchain infrastructure while maintaining the privacy, compliance and controls required of regulated institutions.”
Read more: Deutsche Bank’s L2 Blockchain must be ‘public and permissioned’, says Tech Partner
