Tokenisation in Europe : The New Post-Trade Order

How DLT is reshaping roles, disrupting business models and creating hybrid value chains.
The tokenisation of financial markets in Europe is now emerging as a potential driver of transformation in the post-trade sector, fuelled by distributed ledger technologies (DLT).

Co-signatories: Sopra Steria & France FinTech

$18.9 tn	In tokenised financial assets forecast for 2023
×4	Expected growth in the European tokenisation market by 2030 ($821M → $3,11bn)
+ $300bn	Stablecoin market capitalisation by the end of 2025
2027	Europe’s switch to T+1 – And what next?

Why Has Tokenisation Come to the Fore Now?

A robust but structurally fragmented market

The European post-trade market guarantees security and stability. It does so at the cost of a compartmentalised value chain, T+2 settlement times and costly coordination mechanisms. The challenge of tokenisation is to eliminate these frictions whilst ensuring resilience to institutional standards.

Issuance, trading, clearing, settlement: each stage involves separate parties and systems. The structural separation between the transfer of securities and payment gives rise to counterparty risks and high operational costs.

The European Union plans to move to T+1 in October 2027. This major development raises further questions about the relevance of current models and accelerates discussions on T+0 settlement.

By recording the representation of an asset directly on a programmable shared ledger, tokenisation enables the transfer of securities and payment to be merged into a single process.

Faced with the $315 billion captured by stablecoins, traditional finance is preparing to roll out its own settlement channels. Explore the dynamics of the two institutional alternatives: tokenised deposits as the new standard for commercial banks, and the ECB’s sovereign initiatives on wholesale CBDCs (the Pontes and Appia projects).

Contents of the white paper: Understanding asset tokenisation

What you will find in this white paper

What is asset tokenisation and how is it transforming European markets? This white paper provides concrete and practical answers by analysing the impact of DLT on every link in the value chain.

34 pages of analysis, based on interviews with over 15 key stakeholders — banks, regulators, fintechs, market infrastructures and academics.

Part 1 – Today’s financial markets: strengths and limitations

Part 2 – The introduction of DLT: bringing together assets, ledgers and payments within a single infrastructure

Part 3 - Tokenisation could gradually transform the roles of banks, infrastructures and platforms

Who is this white paper on asset tokenisation in Europe aimed at?

This document is aimed at all financial services professionals dealing with developments in market infrastructure, settlement models and practices relating to digital and tokenised assets.

Banks and financial institutions (CIOs, innovation departments, post-trade managers)
Regulators and supervisory authorities (AMF, ACPR, legal teams)
Fintechs and specialist start-ups (issuance, distribution and settlement of tokenised assets)
Market infrastructures (CSDs, clearing houses, trading platforms)

Comprehensive analysis

Download the white paper

This white paper, co-authored by Sopra Steria and France FinTech, offers a pragmatic overview of the challenges posed by tokenisation for European financial markets.

An essential resource for understanding the use cases for tokenisation, the impacts of DLT and the transformation taking place in the post-trade sector in Europe.

What you’ll find inside: