Tokenisation: From digital assets to market infrastructure

Opportunities for tokenising infrastructure and collateral

Zornitsa Todorova, Head of Thematic FICC Research, believes some of the most significant improvement opportunities may lie in tokenising the infrastructure that moves collateral, settles transactions and manages liquidity.

One notable example is in the repurchase agreements (repo) market, which accounts for more than 90% of a tokenised-infrastructure market approaching $400 billion.⁵

Repo is one of the world's largest funding markets, allowing institutions to borrow cash against high-quality securities such as government bonds. Given the repo market’s scale and central role in moving liquidity around the financial system, even modest efficiency gains could have significant benefits.

Most tokenised repo activity takes place on Broadridge’s Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform. Daily volumes averaged approximately $360 billion in 2026, compared with around $250 billion in 2025.⁶ Monthly volumes approached $8 trillion,⁷ with an average of 7,000-9,000 trades each day.⁸

The DLR platform tokenises the record underlying the repo transaction while the securities remain in conventional custody. Moving this record through a shared ledger can streamline reconciliation, reduce disputes and operational friction, and allow collateral to be reallocated, substituted or pledged more quickly.

The technology therefore improves the movement and management of collateral without changing the underlying intermediation model: institutions still provide balance-sheet capacity, manage risk and intermediate funding flows.