This is a guest opinion post by Jens Hachmeister from Deutsche Börse’s Clearstream, where he is Head of Issuer Services & New Digital Markets.
It is hard to overstate the disruptive potential of digitisation for any industry. Take the music industry: CD album sales in the United States are now 95 percent lower than at their peak in 2000. Why? Because the product has been fully digitised. The advent of the mp3 and streaming has made the physical medium obsolete, providing instant access to everyone, from anywhere in the world at any time – at no risk of losing your favourite tunes due to a scratched CD.
Digital securities are still relatively nascent, but harbour just as much potential to change financial markets and connected business models as seen for example in the music industry. However, for the digitisation journey to truly take off in the financial industry it needs suitable foundations. In other words, the reliable, robust and scalable technical infrastructures that are now available, supported by appropriate regulatory frameworks. On top of this, current business models will have to be re-considered and new approaches that cater to the markets of tomorrow will have to be developed and implemented – whilst always ensuring market stability.
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