Broadridge survey: 84% of financial firms now treat tokenisation as a strategic priority
Key points
- A Broadridge survey of 200 North American financial services executives found 84% of financial institutions now consider tokenisation a strategic priority.
- Sixty-eight percent of respondents expect tokenisation to at least partially reshape financial markets within three to five years, and nearly one-third plan to raise tokenisation investment by 26% to 50% or more over the next two years.
- Ninety-two percent of firms expect digital and traditional assets to coexist, with 69% planning to integrate tokenisation into existing infrastructure rather than build separate blockchain-native systems.
- Capital markets firms are furthest along, with 44% reporting production or scaled initiatives, compared with 20% of asset managers and 9% of wealth managers.
- Approximately 80% of respondents expect tokenised mutual funds and money market funds to play a meaningful role within five years, well ahead of the roughly 50% who say the same for tokenised equities.
A Broadridge survey of 200 North American financial services executives has found that 84% of financial institutions now classify tokenisation as strategically important to their business, with the majority expecting the technology to at least partially reshape financial markets within three to five years. The findings suggest the industry has moved past the experimental phase and is beginning to embed tokenised assets into core market infrastructure planning.
The survey reveals a clear preference for hybrid architecture over wholesale replacement: 92% of respondents expect digital and traditional assets to coexist for the foreseeable future, and 69% plan to incorporate tokenisation into existing systems rather than build standalone blockchain-native platforms. This mirrors the strategy already visible at major institutions, which have connected blockchain networks to current trading, custody, and settlement rails rather than displacing them. Nearly one-third of respondents plan to increase tokenisation investment by 26% to 50% or more over the next two years.
Adoption is concentrated at the capital markets end of the industry. Forty-four percent of capital markets firms report tokenisation initiatives already in production or at scale, against 20% of asset managers and just 9% of wealth managers. Tokenised mutual funds and money market funds are seen as the near-term growth vector, with around 80% of respondents expecting them to play a meaningful role within five years; only roughly half hold the same expectation for tokenised equities. The survey also coincides with DTCC completing its first live production trades in tokenised securities, a milestone the report’s context treats as illustrative of the direction of travel.
Regulatory uncertainty is the most commonly cited obstacle, followed by the operational complexity of integrating blockchain into legacy financial systems. Those two friction points help explain why wealth managers, which tend to face more fragmented client-facing compliance requirements, remain significantly behind capital markets firms on implementation.
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