A coalition of leading global financial trade associations (“The Associations”), with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Ashurst, and Sullivan & Cromwell as technical advisors, have published a report titled “The Impact of DLT in Capital Markets: Ready for Adoption, Time to Act“. The report illustrates how tokenization and DLT are reshaping securities issuance, collateral management, and fund operations, with deep dive analysis of live use cases demonstrating significant efficiency gains, enhanced transparency, and improved risk management.

Key report highlights include:

• DLT is ready to scale: Institutional adoption is accelerating, with tokenized money market funds and digital bond issuances gaining traction globally.
• Technology-neutral regulation is essential: The Joint Trades emphasize that prudential frameworks must focus on the underlying financial activity and risk—not the technology used. Overly conservative capital treatments for cryptoassets risk pushing innovation outside the regulatory perimeter.
• Legislation and regulation must catch up: Reform needs to keep pace with development of DLT-based finance and market developments.
• DLT enables safer, more efficient markets: Use cases such as collateral management, fixed-income issuance, and fund tokenization demonstrate reduced settlement times, improved liquidity, and enhanced operational resilience.

Six priority areas for ecosystem development identified in the report include:

1. Accelerate market development in high-potential asset classes.
2. Clarify legal foundations and align regulatory treatment.
3. Establish interoperability to prevent market fragmentation.
4. Address technical and operational integration gaps.
5. Enable scalable settlement with tokenized money and stable payment instruments.
6. Foster public-private coordination.

The stage for mass adoption of tokenization in capital markets is set, driven by clearer regulatory pathways, mature technology platforms and committed institutional participation. Now is the time for coordinated action to harness the benefits of DLT, modernize financial infrastructure and support sustained economic growth.

The full report and executive summary, as well as deep-dives for each of the use-cases are available for download below.

About the Associations

The Associations include the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) and its members the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA), Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME); Bank Policy Institute (BPI); Futures Industry Association (FIA); Financial Services Forum (FSF); Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC); Global Digital Finance (GDF);  Institute of International Finance (IIF); International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA).

– 19 August 2025 –