Rewiring Market Infrastructure for
a Tokenized Future
Financial institutions increasingly recognize tokenization as a fundamental evolution in market infrastructure — one that could rewire the world’s financial architecture.
The opportunity now is not simply to observe this transformation, but to understand how to adapt, adopt and get ahead of it.
By putting capital onto shared digital ledgers, financial market’s infrastructure itself becomes programmable and automated. Assets carry their own instructions, execute with fewer manual touchpoints and leave a stronger audit trail.
"Speed is definitely a feature of tokenization but continuous liquidity optimization, capital relief and embedded compliance are the benefits it unlocks,” says Horacio Barakat, Global Head of Digital Innovation at Broadridge.
“By shifting markets from fragmented, batch-based processes towards synchronized, more automated operating models, we are building a more resilient and flexible market structure.”
These benefits are especially visible in the repo market. Operating behind the scenes of everyday finance, the repo market is where financial institutions go for funding.
Being the bedrock of the financial ecosystem, repo markets have a knock-on effect on savings rates, mortgage pricing and pension fund liquidity. And ultimately, the inefficiency of the current system is costing us.
A global bank managing around $100 billion in daily repo transactions could release $150 million to $300 million in annual cost savings by using tokenized collateral and instantaneous settlement, according to research by the Boston Consulting Group and Ripple.1
“Legacy infrastructure creates a hidden tax on the market,” says Barakat. “Institutions shoulder trapped balance sheet capacity and operational inefficiency, but ultimately the broader market feels it through lower capital velocity and reduced liquidity efficiency.”
Broadridge’s Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR), launched in 2021, is transforming the short-term funding markets by introducing intraday repo and is now the largest institutional platform for the settlement of tokenized real assets.
The platform saw an average of $351 billion in daily repo transactions during August, with volumes totaling $7.4 trillion. This represents a 25% increase in daily repo transactions.
“By enabling firms to source and return liquidity within the same day, the benefits are reduced liquidity buffers, lower funding costs, improved capital efficiency and greater flexibility in how firms manage collateral and cash,” says Barakat.
The platform achieves this without demanding that institutions dismantle their current systems. Digital and traditional assets can operate side by side within a single processing system, which has proven central to DLR’s scale.
“Interoperability is a design principle,” says Barakat. “We are focused on helping clients operate across tokenized and traditional assets within an integrated environment, rather than forcing them into disconnected systems or new silos.”
Speed is definitely a feature of tokenization but continuous liquidity optimization, capital relief and embedded compliance are the benefits it unlocks
HoraCio Barakat
Global Head of Digital Innovation, Broadridge
Disclaimer: The Reuters news staff had no role in the production of this content. It was created by Reuters Plus, the brand marketing studio of Reuters. To work with Reuters Plus, contact us here.
The Reuters news staff had no role in the production of this content. It was created by Reuters Plus, the brand marketing studio of Reuters.
Produced by Reuters Plus for
Building on Broadridge’s foundational DLR capability for collateral mobility and securities financing, it has launched DLX, its always-on digital asset and tokenization infrastructure platform. DLX extends Broadridge’s tokenization infrastructure to support bonds, equities, funds, private markets, and money market instruments across issuance, trading, settlement, servicing, custody, governance, and distribution. A world where “TradFi” and “DeFi” converge. This expansion also includes support for G7 government bonds on the DLR/DLX.
The scale of the underlying opportunity is especially apparent when one considers the global collateral pool. Of the estimated $255 trillion in marketable securities available for collateral, only $28.6 trillion is actively deployed, due in part to existing requirements and infrastructure lags.2 Tokenization removes those barriers, allowing collateral to move in real time across counterparties, asset classes and borders.
“Unlocking even a small percentage would have a transformative impact on how trades are finalized, reducing risk, freeing liquidity and opening new ways for investors to earn returns,” reads a report by the World Economic Forum.3
As a nod to how tokenization's momentum is taking off, Japan — home to the world’s third- largest sovereign bond market — announced in August plans for a proof of concept to bring Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) repo transactions onchain.4
In fact, the expansion of DLR’s collateral eligibility to other G7 securities will start with JGBs.
Beyond repo: A multi-asset tokenized future
In order to fulfill tokenization’s true potential as a new paradigm for financial markets, there needs to be a certain amount of consolidation and integration. The benefits disappear when the market is fragmented. If institutions build isolated tokenization layers without common standards, the gains become obsolete.
“For tokenization to scale institutionally, the industry needs standardized protocols, shared operating principles and infrastructure that can connect across venues, networks and asset classes,” says German Soto Sanchez, Chief Product Officer and Co-President of Digital Assets at Broadridge.
The volumes moving through DLR — now being extended across asset classes — suggest that institutional tokenization has moved decisively from proof of concept to reality. What comes next is less a question of technology than of infrastructure.
Markets have navigated transformations of this scale before and this current one will follow the same arc. The institutions shaping its outcome are those investing in the connective tissue — not those replicating the fragmented system tokenization is meant to replace.
Institutional scale
The Reuters news staff had no role in the production of this content. It was created by Reuters Plus, the brand marketing studio of Reuters.
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$255 trillion available
Global collateral pool
Tokenization at scale
$7.4T
$351B
28%
Total Volume
YoY Growth
Average Daily Repo Activity
Digital Asset Settlement Network
Broadridge Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR)
28.6T
255T
Only $28.6 trillion in use
Tokenization at scale
$7.4T
28%
$351B
Total Volume
Digital Asset Settlement Network
Broadridge Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR)
YoY Growth
Average Daily Repo Activity
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David Runacres
President of Asia Pacific
Broadridge
Japan is one of the clearest examples where tokenization can deliver immediate institutional value.
“With such deep pools of liquidity, where banks drive much of the momentum, there is an even greater opportunity to reduce friction in liquidity and collateral flows. This makes JGBs more efficient and usable as global collateral.”
Amidst the enthusiasm for tokenization, however, there still exist concerns. An IMF report flags that stressed scenarios could accelerate collateral withdrawals and margin calls, transmitting shocks more rapidly across institutions.5
“That risk is real, and the answer is not to slow innovation down,” answers Broadridge’s Barakat. “Instead, it is to build stronger controls into the system itself.”
“As markets move towards faster settlement, prevention becomes more important than after-the-fact correction. Faster settlement only works at scale if it is paired with established controls, auditability and risk oversight.”
Often an overlooked dimension, governance is central to making tokenization work on an institutional scale. When assets move onchain, their obligations such as dividend entitlements, corporate action notifications and voting rights also travel with them.
In May this year, Galaxy — the digital asset and AI infrastructure company and the first US public company to issue native tokenized equity on a major blockchain — used Broadridge’s platform for its annual meeting and shareholder vote processing.
German Soto Sanchez
Chief Product Officer & Co-President of Digital Assets,
Broadridge
For tokenization to scale institutionally,
the industry needs standardized protocols, shared operating principles and infrastructure that can connect across venues, networks and asset classes.
https://www.gfma.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2.-exec-sum-impact-of-dlt-in-cap-mkts-final-1.pdf
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/12/tokenization-blockchain-assets-finance/
Ibid
https://www.tr.mufg.jp/english/pressreleases/pdf/20260813_2.pdf
https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/imf-notes/2026/english/insea2026001.pdf
References
Repo: The right place to start
HoraCio Barakat
Global Head of Digital Innovation, Broadridge
Speed is definitely a feature of tokenization but continuous liquidity optimization, capital relief and embedded compliance are the benefits it unlocks
Tokenization at scale
$7.4T
25%
$351B
Total Volume
Broadridge Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) August 2026 Tokenized Settlement Volumes
Daily Repo YoY Growth
Average Daily Repo Activity
World Economic Forum Article Global Collateral Pool Estimate, December 2024