BNY views the industry at a pivotal inflection point, with regulation, interoperability, and blockchain-based digital cash driving significant progress.
In its newest release, “The Digital Revolution: Transforming Financial Market Infrastructure,” BNY positions digital assets and cryptocurrencies as the foundational elements of future financial infrastructure.
“We stand at a powerful inflection point that may fundamentally transform how global capital markets function and how its participants transact,” said Carolyn Weinberg, chief product and innovation officer at BNY.
“With our central position and scale in capital markets, we’re partnering with market participants to streamline operations, unlock new growth categories, and invest across tokenisation, blockchain, and AI to help drive the next-generation financial infrastructure.”
Key themes from the report highlight that institutional adoption of digital market infrastructure and blockchain is increasing liquidity, improving price discovery, and driving multi-asset infrastructure for custody, trading, settlement, and tokenised assets, with BNY offering digital asset custody since 2022.
“Our digital asset custody platform isn’t a standalone solution. We’ve built this product leveraging the significant investment, rigorous controls and unwavering commitment to client trust that underpins the existing asset servicing franchise and allows us to join the traditional and digital asset ecosystems,” said Emily Portney, global head of asset servicing.
The report also notes that payments infrastructure is evolving to enable real-time, 24/7 transactions, while tokenised traditional assets like deposits and MMFs could increase mobility and serve as collateral for financial transactions.
Tokenisation is driving the growth of digital cash and cash equivalents, with stablecoins already exceeding $290 billion and projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030, while tokenised deposits, MMFs, and other digital cash equivalents could collectively total $3.6 trillion by 2030, according to the report.
BNY flags interoperability as the third bridging factor, with Brian Ruane, global head of clearance and collateral management, credit services and corporate trust, noting that “with our significant roles in the US Treasury market and the traditional collateral management ecosystem, BNY can drive synergies and efficiencies for our clients by seamlessly connecting these market-leading platforms through our private blockchain rails.”
Finally, the report makes clear BNY’s stance on the regulatory environment, calling for “regulators [to] balance transparency and investor protection with supporting innovation and maintaining stability within the broader financial system, particularly as digital asset markets scale.”
