Asia-Pacific leads in driving digital assets, digital ledger businesses: Citi report

Use of digital money beyond central bank currencies also expected to go up, it finds

- Claire Huang

The Asia-Pacific is leading the world in driving the commercialisation of digital assets and distributed ledger technology (DLT), a report has found.

Almost half (48 per cent) of the respondents from the region said they are already at one of three stages when it comes to DLT and digital assets: proof of concept, revenue generation or commercialisation.

DLT is a digital system for recording the transaction of assets. Blockchain is a type of DLT.

Citi's fourth edition of the securities services evolution white paper series released on Sept 4 found that Europe is the second most active region with 46 per cent of respondents saying they are at one of the three stages.

Both North America and Latin America follow behind at 40 per cent.

Close to 500 market participants from buy- and sell-side institutions were polled for the white paper.

Of the participants, topping the list at 43 per cent are banks, followed by custodians, asset managers, brokers and dealers, institutional investors and others.

By geography, the Asia-Pacific accounted for most of the responses at 34 per cent, followed by Europe at 31 per cent, and North America at 19 per cent. Latin America, Africa and the Middle East made up the rest of the participants.