In December last year IBM and Oxford Economics surveyed 500 banking and payments executives about their expectations around tokenization. Some of the most striking findings were also the most understated.
Take disintermediation. The report frames it as reassuring news that only 18% of executives believe full disintermediation of banks is certain or very likely. But that is almost one in five senior bankers who think their institutions could be cut out of the financial value chain entirely. By the same measure, 18% think tokenized securities will very likely overtake traditional capital markets infrastructure. These are not fringe views.
The more instructive findings concern how banks expect to respond. Across retail, commercial and corporate banking and asset and wealth management, executives in all four divisions ranked custody as their primary role in a tokenized economy, with tokenization services second. The conviction was strongest in asset and wealth management, where more than 70% cited both roles as important, followed closely by corporate banking. Payment firms stood apart: their executives see ecosystem orchestration (67%) and issuance (65%) as their primary roles, reflecting a different competitive logic focused on controlling infrastructure rather than safeguarding assets.
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