Northern Trust has laid out the extent of its preparatory work in digital assets at Morgan Stanley’s investment conference focussed on strategic growth and resilience.
Teresa Parker, president of the Northern Trust’s asset servicing business, told delegates at the conference that the business is anticipating that recent regulatory changes will “accelerate the digitalisation of assets and the tokenisation of assets”.
Addressing delegates at the Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference on 10 June, Parker said the business is prepared for any widespread changes to the international settlement ecosystem, though she said “it’s yet to be seen”.
“We need to be prepared for both scenarios,” she said. “Real time cash may be the solution, and maybe you don’t need stablecoin. We don’t know yet. That’s actually why we need to prepare for both situations.”
Parker explained that the business has been investing in its digital asset capabilities since 2017, to derive use cases that it thinks are likely to be common in the future.
She explained: “[It is a] very important space for us. We do have an investment in a firm that can hold crypto for clients outside the States. We’re exploring what that would mean in terms of clients who may wish to do that.
“We haven’t had a huge surge in that, but we think the bigger opportunity may be in data and digital. I think the other thing in that space is around cash and how cash may change. If that tokenisation of cash takes friction out of the settlement systems…we’re prepared for that if that happens as well.”
