The tokenization of securities is expected to be among the next evolution of the financial industry, according to Standard Chartered's CEO.

Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters sees the tokenization of securities to be a big market and one of the next evolutions in the financial industry. The lower cost of execution and ease of execution will support the growing market of securities tokenization.

«This is the opportunity to take from just very conventional real-world assets, and make them more accessible and easier, once we build the ecosystem… it's the immediate future,» Winters said at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2023 last week.

Time to Maturity

The ecosystem around tokenized assets is extremely exciting and it is a meaningful market. However, it will take a while to get close to maturity. Stanchart has been involved in these aspects through a custodian and building a marketplace, Winters added.

On the other hand, the way data science is evolving, mainly generative AI will be transformative for Stanchart’s business. «Over time, we know that machines are going to be helping us develop things that we don't do today. And managing both parts of that transition will be important,» he said.

Payment Infrastructure

Aside from this, the next big move for banks may include the payment infrastructure. The innovators leapfrogged in 1,000 years of banking to offer a different user experience and took a big chunk of the payments market.

The evolution of payment will complete, and the banks are still very relevant in the payments market. «Building the new economic applications where banks have or are catching up on the technology front and the user experience with more conventional or even exclusive banking products is the next big phase,» Winters said.