September 6, 2024
By Our Correspondent
According to a survey conducted by Citi, the Asia Pacific region is at the forefront of initiatives involving distributed ledger technology and digital assets.
The findings indicate that APAC leads in the pursuit of such initiatives, with 48 percent of respondents engaged in activities aimed at achieving various objectives, including proof-of-concept (28 percent), minimum-viable-product (MVP) deployments (8 percent), and commercial scale implementations (12 percent). Europe follows closely as the second most active region, with 46 percent of respondents involved, while North America and Latin America are tied for third place at 40 percent each.
In terms of blockchain technology adoption priorities, respondents from Asia identified accelerated settlement to T+1 (28 percent) as the most significant post-trade objective. This was succeeded by a focus on settlement efficiency (14 percent) and the adoption of digital assets (13 percent).
Furthermore, APAC has emerged as the leading issuer of digital assets, accounting for 41 percent of total digital security issuance over the past five years. Among various asset classes, 29 percent of respondents from APAC consider cryptocurrencies to be the fastest-growing form of digital assets, followed by equities at 21 percent and fixed income at 19 percent.
Amit Agarwal, head of custody and securities services at Citi, remarked, “The accelerating convergence of traditional and digital assets and operating models underscores the necessity for modern platforms, dependable data, and real-time information.”
He anticipates ongoing investments in automation, cloud infrastructure, and APIs, as well as solutions that seamlessly integrate with distributed ledger technology networks. The insights presented in the white paper titled “Securities Services Evolution 2024” are derived from a survey involving 494 respondents, along with contributions from 14 financial market infrastructures and industry participants.
