Disruptive Technologies in Capital Markets: What FIA Asia 2025 Revealed About AI, Tokenisation and Stablecoins
AI is no longer a “future topic” in financial markets. At FIA Asia 2025, industry leaders from exchanges, trading firms, legal practices and industry bodies discussed how AI, digital assets, tokenisation and stablecoins are moving from experimentation into real market infrastructure.
The key message was simple: innovation is accelerating, but adoption depends on trust and trust requires clear governance, strong controls, and regulation that enables scale without fragmentation.
In this article, we share the most important takeaways from the panel, with a specific focus on what matters for exchanges, brokers, institutional traders, compliance teams and market infrastructure providers across Asia-Pacific and globally.
Why this matters now: disruption is becoming market plumbing
A few years ago, many conversations about AI and digital assets were still theoretical. At FIA Asia 2025, the discussion felt different: panelists spoke about production systems, live use cases, and scaling constraints.
Three forces are converging:
- Operational pressure (resilience, surveillance workload, regulatory reporting, cost control)
- Market evolution (24/7 access, cross-asset “super-app” experiences, retail activity)
- Technology maturity (cloud + AI, better data pipelines, tokenisation infrastructure)
Together, these forces are pushing capital markets toward a new phase: industrialisation of innovation.
1) AI in capital markets: moving from “tools” to “infrastructure”
AI is already reshaping market operations
A key theme was how exchanges and market operators are using AI to improve:
- Resilience and continuity during market stress
- Capacity forecasting (predicting spikes in data storage and processing needs)
- Efficiency in market design, for example reducing unnecessary market data load through more intelligent listing decisions
This is important because market infrastructure is not judged by innovation alone. It is judged by stability, reliability and fairness — especially during high-volatility periods.
AI is changing surveillance and AML economics
Another strong point: surveillance and AML tools generate huge volumes of alerts, many of which require manual triage. Panelists described a shift from “more alerts” to better prioritisation:
- machine learning models helping rank alerts
- automation reducing manual investigation workload significantly
- a gradual move toward more end-to-end assistance (triage → investigation → reporting)
This is a practical transformation: it does not rely on futuristic claims. It reduces noise and improves response time.
For trading firms: ML is already embedded — the new topic is cost + cloud balance
From the trading perspective, machine learning was described as already part of the process for strategy research, signal filtering, parameter selection and optimisation.
What is evolving now is not “ML exists” it’s how efficiently it runs:
- balancing on-prem vs cloud compute
- controlling infrastructure cost while maintaining performance
- scaling research safely and repeatably
Takeaway: AI is becoming a “market utility”, but operational discipline (data, controls, testing, governance) will differentiate real leaders from hype.
2) Digital assets: institutional adoption is driven by regulation, not excitement
The market is moving toward regulated venues
The panel reflected a broader trend: digital asset trading is gradually shifting toward more regulated market structures:
- ETFs and index-linked products
- futures and derivatives tied to crypto benchmarks
- surveillance, reporting and governance tools designed for regulatory expectations
- early steps into clearing for certain crypto instruments (in some jurisdictions)
What this signals is not that crypto is “replacing” traditional markets but that traditional market principles are being applied to crypto as it matures.
Compliance reality: speed, cross-border flows, ownership identification
From a compliance standpoint, digital assets introduce challenges that look familiar (AML, counterparty risk) but behave differently:
- transaction speed and cross-border movement
- attribution (who owns what) and traceability
- reliance on technology vs human judgement (the “trade-off” between automation and intervention)
Takeaway: Institutional growth depends on better infrastructure for identity, traceability, controls and on regulators giving clarity that can be operationalised.
3) Tokenisation: the most misunderstood concept — and maybe the biggest structural shift
Tokenisation was one of the most debated topics, and the panel made a useful distinction that is often missing in public discussions.
Tokenisation vs digitisation: not the same thing
There is a difference between:
- Digitising records (e.g. digital collateral records): improving tracking and mobility of collateral without changing the underlying legal asset
- Tokenising assets or rights: creating a token that represents a claim on an off-chain asset (tokenised bonds, funds, MMFs) or a native on-chain asset (some stablecoins, CBDCs, security tokens)
This matters because it changes:
- settlement mechanics (atomic / instant vs conventional)
- legal treatment and enforceability
- jurisdiction questions
- operational and custody models
Asia case study: Hong Kong pushing forward, while mainland China remains cautious
The discussion highlighted a regional divergence that global firms cannot ignore:
- Hong Kong is actively building frameworks and market pilots
- mainland China remains cautious on certain digital asset activities, affecting cross-border momentum
- this creates a “two-speed” environment where international and local firms may move faster than China-linked entities
The unresolved legal question: which law governs tokens?
One of the most practical issues raised: tokens live on a ledger without borders.
So the question becomes:
- Which jurisdiction’s law applies to ownership, transfer, dispute resolution?
- How do we handle legal certainty for secondary market trading?
This is not a theoretical problem. It is a key barrier to scale.
Takeaway: tokenisation is moving from proof-of-concept to real issuance, but scaling requires legal clarity, interoperability, and secondary market rules not just technology.
4) Stablecoins: huge utility, but “stable” is not guaranteed
Looking ahead, Africa’s capital markets can unlock substantial value by:
- Expanding market-making frameworks across more asset classes
- Strengthening local currency liquidity
- Enhancing infrastructure for electronic, automated trading
- Integrating more markets into pan-African payment systems
- Supporting innovation across structured products, ETFs, and derivatives
What this means for market infrastructure in the next 5 years
Across AI, digital assets, tokenisation and stablecoins, a single theme kept returning:
The future is convergence — but fragmentation is the risk
Market structure is moving toward:
- 24/7 trading expectations
- more retail participation across time zones
- cross-asset access in the same user journey (crypto + equities + derivatives)
- tokenised settlement rails and more on-chain collateral workflows
- AI-enabled operations and surveillance
But if each asset type develops in separate infrastructures, we risk:
- fragmented liquidity
- different versions of “the same asset”
- inconsistent protections
- operational complexity and higher risk
This is why many market operators prefer models where tokenised and traditional assets trade within consistent market frameworks, rather than creating parallel worlds.
Key takeaways
- AI is already core to surveillance, AML and market operations — governance and data quality are now the differentiators.
- Digital assets are maturing through regulated products (ETFs, futures, clearing initiatives) and institutional-grade controls.
- Tokenisation is real and scaling in parts of Asia, but legal jurisdiction and secondary market rules remain major blockers.
- Stablecoins are powerful settlement tools, but adoption depends on reserve transparency, systemic safeguards, and global consistency.
- The strategic challenge for the industry is building convergence without losing market integrity.
FAQ
What is tokenisation in financial markets?
Tokenisation is the creation of a digital token that represents an asset or a legal right to an asset on a distributed ledger. It can refer to tokenised traditional assets (like bonds or funds) or native on-chain assets.
How is AI used by exchanges and market operators?
AI is used for market surveillance, AML alert prioritisation, capacity forecasting, operational resilience, and improving market efficiency through smarter design and data management.
Why do stablecoins matter for market infrastructure?
Stablecoins can enable faster settlement and cross-border value transfer. However, they introduce issuer and reserve risks, so regulation and transparency are critical for mainstream use.
What is the biggest barrier to institutional adoption of digital assets?
Regulatory clarity and operational controls (custody, surveillance, reporting, and governance) are consistently cited as the primary barriers more than technology itself.