Nasdaq Teams With Talos on Tokenized Collateral Management

Nasdaq has launched a partnership with digital assets trading platform Talos.

The collaboration will connect Talos’ digital asset infrastructure with Nasdaq’s Calypso and Trade Surveillance platforms to create a solution for managing tokenized collateral, the companies announced in a news release Monday (March 23).

“The partnership addresses structural barriers that have prevented widespread adoption of tokenized collateral in institutional markets, including the challenge of integrating digital assets into existing risk management and collateral workflows,” the release added.

Tokenized collateral—or digital representation of traditional financial assets on distributed ledger technology—allows for real-time mobility of “securities, cash equivalents, and other high-quality assets across platforms and jurisdictions,” the release added.

Nasdaq said its research shows that 25% of collateral is currently tied up in corrective and non-interest-bearing measures, accounting for more than $35 billion in excess or non-remunerated collateral.

But capturing this opportunity, the release added, requires infrastructure that lets institutions manage tokenized collateral with the same rigor and controls they would use when dealing with mainstream asset classes.

“This partnership solves a fundamental challenge facing institutional markets: the inability to manage exposure across markets with a single risk and asset lens,” said Roland Chai, executive vice president, Nasdaq. “This partnership builds on a series of strategic initiatives designed to converge on- and off-chain market ecosystems, while preserving the liquidity, transparency and integrity of regulated markets. As both a market operator and technology provider to the global financial industry, Nasdaq is uniquely positioned to drive forward the next wave of innovation and growth across global capital markets.”

In other tokenization news, PYMNTS wrote last week about the technology’s evolution into “a structural layer that allows commerce to proceed without a visible checkout.”

This shift is explored in “The Prompt Economy Tracker® Series: Tokens, Trust and Transactions,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Visa collaboration that looks at how payment tokenization lets agents and wallets transact without exposing underlying card numbers.

The report characterizes tokenization as a “digital trust layer” that swaps out primary account numbers with secure credentials, permitting transactions to run across existing rails while safeguarding sensitive data.

“Tokenization enables agents to move from advisory tools to transactional tools,” PYMNTS wrote. “Without tokenization, an agent could book a flight using a stored card number, but that approach broadens risk across multiple merchants or platforms. With tokenized credentials, those risks are reduced because the underlying card number is not shared, and network-level controls apply.”