The market for tokenised financial assets is expanding at a breakneck pace. The total value of tokenised assets is expected to reach $6 trillion this year and soar to nearly $19 trillion by 2033—a staggering compound annual growth rate of 53%.
Major financial players are no longer treating tokenisation as an experiment, but rather a strategic and evolutionary development in modern financial services.
Real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation is converting ownership rights into digital tokens on a blockchain. Tokenisation bridges the gap between traditional and decentralised finance (DeFi) by representing RWAs as blockchain-based tokens, unlocking new liquidity and efficiency gains for financial institutions. A RWA tokenisation platform maximises these advantages for partners and issuers as they transition through the three phases of tokenised asset adoption.
This is when banks and investment firms actively onboard familiar products as tokens to test readiness, realise immediate operational gains, and establish basic infrastructure like digital asset custody and issuance.
Firms often begin to tokenise more complex assets with deeper requirements that can also unlock broader value and gains. Continued momentum depends on clearer regulations, more sophisticated platforms and a commitment to challenge traditional revenue streams.
This phase is a system-level reinvention wherein traditionally illiquid assets can become tokenised, shared infrastructure becomes the norm, and industry-wide collaboration is standardised. Defined by profitability, this final phase marks the next generation of finance.
Despite incremental innovation, the global financial system still runs on decades-old infrastructure that is slow, fragmented and increasingly at odds with the needs of modern markets, clients and capital flows. Tokenisation represents a fundamental shift, turning traditional financial instruments into programmable, agile software.
The process of digitisng RWAs into tradable tokens can enhance liquidity, transparency and accessibility by enabling 24/7 transferability, near-instant settlement and automated compliance via smart contracts. This reduces reliance on intermediaries, accelerates transactions and broadens market access.
Financial institutions benefit from lower costs, faster settlement and expanded investor reach, while customers gain enhanced security, fractional ownership opportunities and more efficient asset management.
Financial institutions are already leveraging tokenisation to enhance efficiency and unlock new value. Investment-grade bonds and real estate have shown meaningful early traction. They are commercially viable today, but some others require key enablers like new standards and solutions to emerge before adoption can reasonably scale.
The $140 trillion global bond market has long been constrained by high issuance costs, slow settlement times, and an overreliance on intermediaries. Tokenisation addresses each of these challenges, dramatically cutting operational costs, enabling real-time settlement, and using smart contracts to automate processes. This use case and its benefits have been demonstrated by several major banks that have already executed tokenised bond issuance on both permissioned and public blockchains.
Tokenisation brings liquidity to the $300 trillion real estate market—a notoriously illiquid and opaque asset class—by streamlining transactions and enabling fractional ownership. While institutional-grade assets such as commercial properties, infrastructure projects and large-scale property funds are already being tokenised, the continued development of secondary markets will help reduce illiquidity discounts and encourage greater participation.
The $16 trillion global repo and collateral market suffers from fragmented settlement processes and slow asset mobility. With tokenisation, banks can realise significant savings through on-chain collateral pledging, real-time transfers and smart contract-based margin management. However, for tokenisation to reach scale in this sector, the industry must establish interoperable token standards, common margin rules and regulatory clarity on re-hypothecation.
Global trade finance exceeds $10 trillion in volume, but remains burdened by back-office inefficiencies and manual processes. Tokenisation can streamline operations by enabling real-time invoice settlement, programmable payments and improved access to liquidity for businesses of all sizes. Standardised digital documentation, legally recognised smart contracts, and integration with logistics and banking infrastructure are needed to scale effectively.
For businesses managing substantial cash balances in low-yield accounts, tokenisation offers the potential to improve liquidity management. By digitising assets, treasurers can more easily allocate funds into diversified instruments such as money market funds, automate intraday liquidity operations, and facilitate faster foreign exchange transactions using stable, digital representations of currency. Realising these efficiencies depends on the continued development of programmable settlement infrastructure and advanced internal treasury systems.
As tokenisation continues to mature and the underlying infrastructure evolves, institutions with a clear strategy and willingness to adapt will be better positioned to benefit. While adoption may vary by sector and geography, the broader trajectory suggests that digital asset models will play an increasingly important role in shaping future treasury and financial operations.
The Payments Association
St Clement’s House
27 Clements Lane
London EC4N 7AE
© Copyright 2024 The Payments Association. All Rights Reserved. The Payments Association is the trading name of Emerging Payments Ventures Limited.
Emerging Ventures Limited t/a The Payments Association; Registered in England and Wales, Company Number 06672728; VAT no. 938829859; Registered office address St. Clement’s House, 27 Clements Lane, London, England, EC4N 7AE.
Log in to access complimentary passes or discounts and access exclusive content as part of your membership. An auto-login link will be sent directly to your email.
We use an auto-login link to ensure optimum security for your members hub. Simply enter your professional work e-mail address into the input area and you’ll receive a link to directly access your account.
Instead of using passwords, we e-mail you a link to log in to the site. This allows us to automatically verify you and apply member benefits based on your e-mail domain name.
Please click the button below which relates to the issue you’re having.
Sometimes our e-mails end up in spam. Make sure to check your spam folder for e-mails from The Payments Association
Most modern e-mail clients now separate e-mails into different tabs. For example, Outlook has an “Other” tab, and Gmail has tabs for different types of e-mails, such as promotional.
For security reasons the link will expire after 60 minutes. Try submitting the login form again and wait a few seconds for the e-mail to arrive.
The link will only work one time – once it’s been clicked, the link won’t log you in again. Instead, you’ll need to go back to the login screen and generate a new link.
Make sure you’re clicking the link on the most recent e-mail that’s been sent to you. We recommend deleting the e-mail once you’ve clicked the link.
Some security systems will automatically click on links in e-mails to check for phishing, malware, viruses and other malicious threats. If these have been clicked, it won’t work when you try to click on the link.
For security reasons, e-mail address changes can only be complete by your Member Engagement Manager. Please contact the team directly for further help.
