ASIFMA, the financial industry’s leading regional trade association, today released its new major research “Tokenised Securities – A Roadmap for Market Participants and Regulators“.
The industry white paper was presented exclusively at Block O2O event “STO: Blockchain Powered Next-level Fintech”, by Mark Austen, CEO of ASIFMA, and Laurence Van der Loo, Director of Technology and Operations at ASIFMA.
Can tokenisation revolutionise traditional finance? Yes, it can, says the paper, and it will bring the benefits of DLT into the traditional securities lifecycle.
According to the research, despite being at the early stage of development, tokenised securities will act as a bridge between legacy finance and the new digital world.
Apart from analysing how tokenisation will affect market participants, i.e. incumbent financial institutions and issuers, the paper also looks at problems and challenges they need to consider in the various stages of the securities development cycle.
The report examines such key aspects as structuring, issuance, distribution, primary listing, secondary trading, custody, portfolio management, advisory and market making and how these processes can be compared to traditional securities. It also considers what an enabling environment for tokenised securities will look like from regulatory, tax, technology and liquidity perspectives.
“According to digital evangelists tokenised securities and security tokens are the next megatrend of the blockchain revolution and will disrupt the financial world completely, but scepticism abounds and they have yet to be adopted by mainstream users,”
said Laurence Van der Loo, Director of Technology and Operations at ASIFMA.
The report was developed in collaboration with ASIFMA members Citi, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith Freehills, King & Wood Mallesons, Latham & Watkins, Linklaters, Mayer Brown, Nomura, Norton Rose Fulbright, PwC, Standard Chartered and UBS.
The full report can be downloaded here.