Sibos returns to Frankfurt at the end of September 2025 under the theme “The Next Frontiers of Global Finance.” For the securities services industry, this year’s gathering comes at a time of profound transition. Tokenisation, artificial intelligence (AI), interoperability and resilience are no longer distant possibilities but immediate realities reshaping market infrastructure. Banks, regulators, asset managers and fintech entrants alike are experimenting with new models for custody, settlement, collateral and risk management.

Standard Chartered seeks to position itself at the forefront of this transformation. It is one of the institutions that has moved deliberately to embrace digital assets and next-generation technologies across both wholesale and retail platforms. Tan Ying Ying, Global Head of Product Management for Financing and Securities Services, outlined how the bank is executing on its digital asset strategy, deploying AI in securities operations, balancing legacy and emerging settlement rails, and embedding resilience at the core of its infrastructure.

Tokenisation moves from pilots to full ecosystem adoption

Tan made clear that for Standard Chartered, tokenisation was not an experiment but a deliberate, top-down strategy. “We did not start the journey yesterday,” she explained. “We started like five or six years ago, even before the COVID period. It has the support from the Group CEO all the way down to working level, and we did not do it as a random test case—we did it with intent, with purpose, within a structured remit”.

She said the bank’s digital assets strategy was built on five pillars: trading venues, accessibility, custody, tokenisation and interoperability. “We do believe that digital assets are not a question of if, it’s a question of when,” Tan stressed. “A year ago, I said it was about when the tipping point would come. Today, I think we are already there, seeing pervasive usage and wider adoption coming in the months and years ahead”.

The bank has moved quickly from principles to execution. In trading, Standard Chartered claims it recently became the first global systemically important bank (G-SIB) to offer spot trading in Bitcoin and Ether. In custody, it has enabled safekeeping of cryptoassets in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Luxembourg, extending this year to Hong Kong with a landmark transaction. “We supported the first tokenisation of a retail fund in Asia with China AMC,” Tan said. “I would even argue it was the first in the world”. The partnership saw a retail unit trust fund tokenised in February 2025, extending accessibility to a broader investor base.

Standard Chartered has also pursued collateral use cases. In May, the bank worked with OKX and Franklin Templeton’s Benji Investments app to allow tokenised mutual fund units to be pledged as collateral. “In the past, a mutual fund or unit trust could never be used as collateral,” Tan remarked. “Now we have enabled that. The point is not just about whether we can tokenise, but what happens after tokenisation—what is life after tokenisation”.

She underscored that the aim was to build an ecosystem rather than one-off pilots. “Our strategy is to enable buy- and sell-side adoption together. Once you tokenise, you must ask what broader accessibility and adoption it enables—whether as collateral, for trading, or for near-instantaneous settlement. That is the true target state”.

Interoperability demands stringent standards and guardrails

Tokenisation brings with it the question of interoperability across chains, platforms and markets. Tan highlighted both opportunities and constraints. “Do you want to be interoperable with everybody? The answer is always yes. But does it make sense? The reality is you must make sure connections are scalable and secure,” she said. “We are still a bank. We are still liable to protect client assets. You can’t just connect to anyone”.

Interoperability requires stringent controls. Standard Chartered applies a “coin assessment model” to determine which chains or protocols to connect with, balancing opportunities against added risks. The bank currently operates on Ethereum Request for Comment (ERC) -20, a widely used technical standard for fungible tokens, and Stellar chains, and is evaluating further integrations. “We don’t just connect for the sake of connectivity. We need to protect our clients while extending interoperability,” Tan explained.

Regulatory compliance, she emphasised, is non-negotiable. “We are authorised intermediaries. There is no excuse not to be aware of anti-money laundering (AML), know-your-customer (KYC) requirements, and why those rules exist. Digital assets bring new dimensions of risk—cybersecurity, fraud, smart contract vulnerabilities—that we must manage front to back, from operations to compliance and technology”.

Regulatory momentum is uneven across markets. Singapore’s Project Guardian, Hong Kong’s electronic Hong Kong dollar (e-HKD) pilot under Project Ensemble, and sandbox regimes in the United Kingdom (UK) and elsewhere illustrate varying approaches. Standard Chartered itself has applied for a digital asset custody licence with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), requiring hardware security modules onshore. “Some countries go straight to licensing, others go through sandboxes. Both are valid depending on readiness and infrastructure,” Tan said.

She compared the state of standards to earlier eras of financial messaging. “ISO 20022 came after ISO 15022, and it took decades to get here. Standards introduce common practices and richer data, but in digital assets we are still in early stages. It will not take 50 years like the traditional world, but harmonisation will take time”.

AI shifts securities services from manual processes to intelligent operations

AI, Tan observed, is beginning to reshape securities services at both ends of the value chain—client instruction intake and back-end processing. “Clients are still sending us instructions in PDFs or even paper in some markets,” she noted. “We have built large language models that can convert portable document format (PDF) instructions into trade inputs. That is live today in markets with high PDF usage”.

The bank also uses AI to parse non-standard SWIFT messages (MT599), route them to the right teams, and summarise market news across jurisdictions. Two markets have already gone live with these AI-driven tools. “This is more on the generative AI side, and we have seen tangible improvement,” Tan said.

At the back end, Standard Chartered has nearly completed a real-time data lake combining securities, cash, foreign exchange (FX) and net asset value (NAV) information. “Now we can build AI layers on top of this. A client asks, ‘What’s my position?’—we can read the query from email, SWIFT, Symphony, or other channels, pull it from the data lake, and respond in real time. This gives us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to redesign our servicing model,” Tan explained.

With predictive analytics, the bank aims to anticipate settlement fails, optimise liquidity, and provide new value-added insights. “We can now deliver functions no one has offered before. It is not just about efficiency, but about creating new products and services,” she said.

AI governance, however, is rigorous. “I can’t go to the bank and say, let me do my own AI. It is not allowed,” Tan stressed. Standard Chartered has implemented group-wide governance on AI explainability, bias minimisation, and operational risk. This includes transparency in algorithms, regular audits, anomaly detection, and mandatory training. “Attendance is compulsory. In the Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB), all front lines have to attend AI modules. It shows how seriously the bank takes it,” she said.

As for the workforce impact, Tan rejected the notion of AI simply eliminating jobs. “It is not about taking away jobs, it is about redefining them. Instead of entering trades, staff monitor real-time data lakes, identify anomalies and work as data scientists. It is a reconfiguration of roles”.

Settlement infrastructure converges through digital and legacy integration

In securities services, settlement is at the heart of resilience and trust. Tan explained that Standard Chartered had modernised much of its core infrastructure, enabling it to adopt digital overlays. “Most of our core banking and securities processing infrastructure is already harmonised and modernised. If you don’t do this, you can’t move to real-time data lakes. We build microservices on top, wrap legacy systems with tokenisation layers, and interoperate with both traditional and digital ecosystems”.

SWIFT remains relevant in this hybrid world. “SWIFT still serves a purpose for harmonisation. The question is how the new ecosystem will embrace it for digital assets. That is a key agenda for SWIFT itself,” she said. At the same time, emerging players like Sui and other distributed ledger platforms may introduce new connectivity models.

The goal of convergence between cash and securities settlement is not new. “Delivery versus payment (DVP) has always been a problem statement. With blockchain, we can now potentially achieve near-instantaneous DVP. If both assets sit on the same chain, it can be instant. If they sit on different chains, it depends on interoperability and robustness,” Tan explained.

Liquidity optimisation is a parallel issue. “If everything is instant, will you still need so much liquidity? That is the fundamental question,” she said. Instant settlement reduces risk but requires new models of liquidity and fraud management. “It is still about solving the old problem of true DVP, just with new tools”.

Cybersecurity becomes central to market stability

As tokenisation, application programming interfaces (APIs) and vendor connections proliferate, cyber and operational resilience are increasingly critical. Tan emphasised that Standard Chartered operates under strict governance. “If there is a governance protocol, it will be adopted bank-wide. No business line can get dispensation unless properly approved,” she said.

Vendor and third-party management are tightly controlled, with defined interfacing protocols, API standards, and hybrid architecture rules. “It is fully embedded with risk management, information security, compliance and cyber teams,” Tan explained.

The bank also invests in resiliency. “We run more than one data centre globally and are upgrading to ensure full resiliency between Singapore and the UK. These can be flipped on almost instantaneously,” Tan said. Recent industry disruptions, such as those linked to cloud vulnerabilities, had minimal impact on the bank, which she pointed to as evidence of the robustness of its frameworks.

Sibos provides the platform for industry-wide transformation

Looking ahead to Sibos Frankfurt 2025, Tan emphasised the event’s enduring importance. “I call it your mass dating event,” she joked.  “We are able to meet our senior clients in half-hour slots across a few days instead of travelling for months. In the daytime you have structured meetings, and in the evenings, you can better understand problem statements in a more informal setting. It is an opportunity to bring the entire ecosystem—banks, clients, fintechs, regulators—into one place, sharing strategic visions, forthcoming plans, industry trends, and regulation changes. And importantly, it is about how to transform operating models together”.

Asked what outcomes she most wanted from Sibos, Tan said she was “intellectually curious” to learn about global trends. “I will not know everything happening worldwide. Sibos gives me an accelerated learning curve, so we can prepare the bank faster. My role as product head is to solve for revenue two years from now, while sales solves for the next 12 months. That requires us to always stay ahead, faster than peers”.

Sibos as the arena for the next frontier

For Tan, tokenisation, AI, interoperability and resilience are not abstract buzzwords but practical agendas already reshaping Standard Chartered’s securities services. From retail fund tokenisation in Hong Kong to AI-driven instruction processing, from sandbox licences in Asia to the convergence of settlement rails, the bank is moving deliberately to maintain its leadership position.

Sibos Frankfurt 2025 provides the arena where these changes will be debated, challenged, and accelerated—bringing together global banks, regulators, fintechs and market infrastructures. As Tan concluded, the value of Sibos lies in “connecting and learning,” ensuring the industry keeps pace with the future of digital-native finance.