One highlight in the fresh whitepaper is that after years of groundwork, market participants are now focused on execution and the delivery of initiatives to drive heightened enthusiasm and innovation.

Bank-issued stablecoins are a key enabler. Ten per cent of market turnover is expected to be conducted using digital assets and tokenised securities by 2030, with bank-issued stablecoins identified as the main enabler to support collateral efficiency, fund tokenisation, and private market securities.

Accelerated settlements are dominating the agenda. The majority (76 per cent) are actively working on transaction date plus one business day (T+1) initiatives in 2025, indicating a historical high in settlement acceleration workload.

Another key finding of the whitepaper is GenAI use in post-trade operations. While 86 per cent of respondents said their firms are piloting the use of GenAI, 57 per cent are piloting the technology for post-trade services.

Buy-side firms are leading the way for GenAI use in the back office as 67 per cent of institutional investors are prioritising the pilot and use of GenAI for post-trade reconciliation and reporting, and clearing and settlements.

Asia Pacific has led the path of digital asset adoption on the back of extensive retail take up of cryptocurrencies and regulatory efforts to move digital asset projects into deployment.

“As the industry is at an inflection point, financial institutions and market infrastructure (FMI) are looking to harness the benefits of GenAI and digital solutions to reimagine global post-trade operations. At Citi Vietnam, we are witnessing these shifts, from accelerated trade settlement, corporate action processing and digital adoption, to greater transparency and shareholder engagement,” said Hung Hoang, Citi Vietnam head of investor services.

“We are committed to partnering with our clients who are investing in Vietnam's market to introduce digital and data solutions to unlock new opportunities and deliver growth,” he noted.

Citi's fifth and latest edition of the annual whitepaper polled 537 industry leaders, the largest participation so far in the series, and for the first time includes a perspective on the role of GenAI and views on its adoption.

The 537 participants include leaders from FMIs, custodians, banks, broker-dealers, asset managers, and institutional investors, and the whitepaper includes qualitative insights from 13 FMIs.