The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) has been cleared by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to move ahead with a new tokenisation service, following the issuance of a no-action letter.
Frank La Salla
The letter allows its subsidiary DTC to tokenise its real-world assets and make those digital representations available on pre-approved blockchains.
The SEC authorisation spans an initial three-year period and covers a defined range of highly liquid instruments, including securities within the Russell 1000 index, ETFs linked to major benchmarks, and US Treasury bills, notes and bonds.
The service is expected to go live in the second half of 2026 and will initially operate in a controlled production environment for DTC Participants and their clients.
Digital versions of these assets will carry the same investor protections, rights and entitlements as their traditional forms, with the same operational safeguards applied across DTC’s existing infrastructure.
Frank La Salla, president and chief executive of DTCC, said: “I want to thank the SEC for its trust in us. Tokenising the US securities market has the potential to yield transformational benefits such as collateral mobility, new trading modalities, 24/7 access and programmable assets, but this will only be achievable if market infrastructure provides a robust foundation to usher in this new digital era.”
La Salla added: “We welcome this opportunity to further enable and innovate for the industry, our participants and their clients. We look forward to partnering across the industry to tokenise real-world assets safely and securely while advancing the future of finance for generations to come.”
While the relief outlines certain conditions and limitations, it effectively accelerates DTC’s path to launching the service compared with a standard regulatory approval process.
Also, the upcoming service will be backed by DTCC’s ComposerX platform suite, which is designed to allow digital and traditional markets to operate alongside one another and potentially tap into shared liquidity pools.
Brian Steele, managing director, president of clearing and securities services at DTCC, said: “From the start, DTCC has been pioneering breakthrough technologies that redefine markets and safeguard their integrity. Our tokenisation initiative will build upon that legacy and enable us to work collaboratively with industry participants to usher in the era of digital markets.”
Steele added: “In partnership with our clients and the broader market, we will tokenise securities with uncompromising security, sound legal footing and seamless interoperability, all backed by the resilience that has anchored traditional markets for decades.”
Under the terms of the no-action relief, DTC can offer the tokenisation service across approved Layer-1 and Layer-2 networks.
“Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) has the power to reshape markets, and DTCC is championing this transformation through innovative actions and bold solutions,” said Nadine Chakar, managing director and head of digital assets at DTCC. “Our suite of DLT offerings will underpin DTCC’s tokenisation service and, together with the industry, will drive development of a new digital asset ecosystem for all.”
DTCC said further details on onboarding, wallet registration and network approval criteria will be released closer to its launch.