Citi and SDX have announced a collaboration to extend the reach of tokenisation into private market investments.
Through the tie up, US bank Citi will be tokenising, settling and safekeeping assets on SDX’s digital Central Securities Depositary platform, which will also bring late-stage, pre-IPO equities to institutional and eligible investors.
Making the announcement at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, the pair said that developing a scalable solution would make shares in high-growth, venture-backed private companies “much more accessible to investors”.
They added that it would “present a novel and compliant model to simplify liquidity management for early investors and employees while enabling cap table control”.
David Newns, head of SDX, said the initiative would deploy its regulated blockchain-based technology to “enable the efficient distribution of shares in mature international private companies, which are expected to generate strong investor interest”.
Marni McManus, Citi country officer & head of banking for Switzerland, Monaco & Liechtenstein, lauded Switzerland’s regulatory framework and SDX’s infrastructure that allowed the bank to bring a new solution to market
“Private markets is a major and growing opportunity and our work with SDX promises to simplify and digitise what is essentially a manual and paper-driven industry today,” said McManus.
In a statement, the two institutions said global digital asset banking group, Sygnum, and Singapore-based financial institution, SBI Digital Markets, would facilitate access to the pre-IPO equities that Citi will bring onto the SDX platform to their clients in Europe and Asia, respectively.
The venture is expected to be live by the third quarter of 2025.
