APAC is Leading Digital Asset Adoption

Citi: APAC is Leading Digital Asset Adoption

A sizeable portion of financial market turnover will be conducted using digital assets, according to a Citi report, with the Asia Pacific region currently leading adoption.

By 2030, 10 percent of market turnover is expected to be conducted using digital assets and tokenized securities, according to a Citi whitepaper entitled «Securities Services Evolution». Bank-issued stablecoins were identified as the «main enabler to support collateral efficiency, fund tokenization and private market securities».

By region, Asia Pacific is viewed as the current leader in digital asset adoption, driven by «extensive retail take up of cryptocurrencies and regulatory efforts to move digital asset projects into deployment».

T+1 and GenAI

The report also notes a historical high in settlement acceleration workload with 76 percent of respondents claiming they are actively working on T+1 initiatives in 2025. 86 percent also said their firms are piloting the use of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) with client onboarding as the key use case for asset managers, custodians and broker-dealers. 57 percent are also piloting genAI specifically for post-trade processes.

«From accelerated settlements to automation in asset servicing, and increased shareholder participation and governance, the collective vision of firms worldwide is converging on the same core themes. The industry is at the cusp of significant change as market participants intensify their focus on T+1, accelerate the adoption of digital assets, and implement GenAI across their operations,» commented Chris Cox, head of investor services, Citi.

The fifth edition of the annual whitepaper is based on responses from 537 participants including leaders from financial market infrastructures (FMI), custodians, banks, brokerdealers, asset managers and institutional investors. It also includes qualitative insights from 13 FMIs.

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