xStocks, Payward’s tokenized equities framework, has deployed its first set of tokenized equities representing U.K. and European publicly listed assets, the company announced Wednesday (Nov. 11). Payward called it “the most significant broadening of the framework beyond tokenized US listings to date.”
The launch takes xStocks past 1,500 tokenized assets, and is powered by a continuing partnership between Payward Services and investment-focused FinTech GTN.
“Access to capital markets is still drawn on a map, and it still depends on holding the right passport,” said Mark Greenberg, Payward’s chief commercial officer. “A portfolio should not have borders or trading hours. We are building toward a single global market where any listed company can be held by any investor, whatever their address, their currency, or their local broker. Over 200 U.K. and European listings onchain today is proof it works. Tokenizing every other international market is the next step.”
Payward said its first wave covers more than 200 of the most actively-traded companies listed in the European Union and the U.K.
The expansion follows Payward’s recent partnership with the London Stock Exchange to promote tokenization, “and delivers on plans to tokenize the top 100 London-listed equities as xStocks,” the company said.
Beginning next year, and pending regulatory approval, the London Stock Exchange intends to list xStocks and begin trading them on LSE 24.
Payward also formed a tokenization-related partnership with Nasdaq earlier this year, with Nasdaq recently investing $100 million in Payward.
In related news, PYMNTS wrote last week that while Wall Street is preparing to modernize post-trade plumbing and experiment with tokenized real-world assets, it’s not yet clear if that means the “corporate order book” is moving to the blockchain.
This came after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) cleared the way for perpetual futures tied to individual stocks to trade on registered exchanges in the U.S., “extending a defining feature of cryptocurrency markets into traditional equities and bringing offshore trading activity under U.S. supervision,” the report said.
Morgan Stanley was last week one of the first banks to use the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s new tokenization infrastructure to tokenize popular American stocks.
But the question isn’t whether corporate treasurers need a blockchain strategy because Morgan Stanley has adopted one, and the CFTC has permitted certain products, PYMNTS wrote. It’s whether tokenization can transform the economics of managing liquidity.
“There is a difference between making an asset easier to move and making its value easier to spend,” the report added. “For corporate finance chiefs, that distinction is the difference between a Wall Street infrastructure upgrade and a working capital opportunity.”
