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The UK’s home for tokenised equity. Independent news, insight and resources for founders raising capital, investors deploying it, and the firms supporting both — as the regulation, infrastructure and opportunity converge.

Tokenisation Is a Strategic Priority for 84 Per Cent of Financial Firms

  • Writer: Shawn Jhanji
    Shawn Jhanji
  • Jul 21
  • 3 min read
Financial technology provider Broadridge published survey findings this month showing that tokenisation has become a strategic priority for 84 per cent of the financial services executives it polled, a number that turns a debate long dominated by pilots and position papers into something closer to a stated corporate mandate. The figure comes from a Broadridge survey of 200 North American financial services executives, so it is not a UK data point, but it is a useful measure of direction of travel for anyone in Britain watching whether institutional tokenisation talk is converting into budget. Sixty eight per cent of respondents said tokenisation will at least partially reshape financial markets within the next three to five years, and close to a third plan to increase their tokenisation investment by 26 to 50 per cent or more over the next two years. That is a meaningfully more committed posture than the cautious, wait and see language that characterised most institutional commentary on tokenisation even twelve months ago.

Financial technology provider Broadridge published survey findings this month showing that tokenisation has become a strategic priority for 84 per cent of the financial services executives it polled, a number that turns a debate long dominated by pilots and position papers into something closer to a stated corporate mandate.


The figure comes from a Broadridge survey of 200 North American financial services executives, so it is not a UK data point, but it is a useful measure of direction of travel for anyone in Britain watching whether institutional tokenisation talk is converting into budget.


Sixty eight per cent of respondents said tokenisation will at least partially reshape financial markets within the next three to five years, and close to a third plan to increase their tokenisation investment by 26 to 50 per cent or more over the next two years. That is a meaningfully more committed posture than the cautious, wait and see language that characterised most institutional commentary on tokenisation even twelve months ago.


"Sixty eight per cent of respondents said tokenisation

will at least partially reshape financial markets

within the next three to five years"


The detail worth sitting with is not the headline number but the adoption gap sitting underneath it. Forty four per cent of capital markets firms told Broadridge they already have tokenisation initiatives in production or operating at scale, against 20 per cent of asset managers and just 9 per cent of wealth managers. Strategic priority and operational reality are clearly two different things, and the wealth management layer, the part of the industry closest to the private investors and family offices that eventually fund early stage UK companies, is the furthest behind. For founders and platforms hoping tokenised structures will widen the pool of investors they can reach, that gap is the one to watch closing.


The survey also found that 92 per cent of respondents expect digital and traditional assets to coexist for the foreseeable future, and 69 per cent plan to integrate tokenisation into their existing infrastructure rather than build separate blockchain native systems. That is a practical, unglamorous finding, but it matters for UK infrastructure providers and custodians pitching into institutional clients: the winning technology approach for the next few years is more likely to be integration into legacy rails than a clean rip and replace.


Regulatory uncertainty was the most commonly cited challenge, ahead of the operational complexity of integrating blockchain technology into existing systems. That finding lands alongside a busy fortnight of UK regulatory activity, from HM Treasury's Wholesale Digital Markets Champion report to the ongoing FCA and Bank of England call for input, and is a reminder that clarity from regulators is doing as much to unlock institutional capital as any single piece of technology.


Key takeaways


  • Broadridge's survey of 200 North American financial services executives found 84 per cent now treat tokenisation as a strategic priority, with 68 per cent expecting it to reshape markets within three to five years.

  • Nearly a third of respondents plan to raise tokenisation investment by 26 to 50 per cent or more over the next two years.

  • Adoption is uneven: 44 per cent of capital markets firms have tokenisation in production or at scale, against 20 per cent of asset managers and 9 per cent of wealth managers, the segment closest to early stage private capital.

  • 92 per cent expect digital and traditional assets to coexist, and 69 per cent favour integrating tokenisation into existing infrastructure over building separate blockchain native systems.

  • Regulatory uncertainty remains the top cited barrier, ahead of operational integration complexity, reinforcing the value of the UK's current run of regulatory clarifications.


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