Book money tokens or tokenised book money: is a customer deposit held with a bank, which is digitally represented by a token. A token, in turn, is stored on a decentralised platform and represents an asset, a financial instrument or an economic good. Unlike e-money (such as prepaid credit cards, PayPal or the Geldkarte), which requires 100 per cent backing, a book money token does not have to be fully backed.

A token representing book money could be issued on a distributed ledger platform (see distributed ledger technology). This would enable the implementation of programmable money, which, through the use of smart contracts, would facilitate fully automated payment processes. Use cases would include, for example, machine-to-machine (M2M) payments or pay-per-use.

To ensure that the book-money token is identical and interchangeable between different issuing banks, certain standardisation measures are required. (Publication date: 25 August 2021)

See also Presentation for the online discussion session on the ‘Digital Euro’ held on 12 April 2021, pages 17–20 or The German Banking Association (2021), Europe Needs New Money – The Ecosystem of CBDCs, Book Money Tokens and Trigger Solutions