20 August, 2026 (London): The FIX Trading Community, the industry association that manages the world’s trading language, the FIX Protocol, has called for better standardisation for tokenised assets in its response to the FCA and Bank of England’s “Call for input: The future of tokenisation – a joint vision from the authorities for UK wholesale” consultation.
While the consultation focused on UK markets, the FIX Digital Asset & Technology Committee, which includes market operators, sell-side firms, buy-side firms and vendors from around the world, noted that the need for standardisation was a global issue. Executive Director Jim Kaye said that the common global barrier to adoption of tokenised solutions was not the technology itself, but issues around workflows and data standards.
“The business cases for tokenisation are both compelling and well advanced, particularly in the areas of post-trade and collateral management,” he said. “However, lack of common data standards, along with issues around workflows and reconciliation, will continue to hamper adoption unless the industry works together to address them.”
Having published a guide to using FIX for tokenized assets earlier this year, and Recommended Practices for Digital Asset Trading in 2022, FIX’s work is focused on developing further standards to support the hybrid environment that is likely to exist into the medium term. One area of particular concern is how data is encrypted in digital asset transactions – currently there is no agreed encryption standard, creating the potential for customer and other sensitive data to be exposed.
Other areas that must be solved before tokenisation can offer safe, efficient alternatives to traditional instruments and methodologies include:
- Chain-to-chain connectivity — the ability to move a digital asset between different blockchain environments.
- Common instrument identifiers — a consistent digital ID that travels with an asset across chains.
- Connectivity standards for exchanges, custodians, and digital asset platforms — these are currently inconsistent and largely bilateral.
- Settlement instruction standards — there are currently no agreed standards for sending or receiving settlement instructions in the digital asset context.
- Wallet and legal entity schemas — common approaches to wallet addressing and the mapping of wallet addresses to legal entities.
- Event taxonomy — consistent representation of corporate actions, coupon payments, and other asset servicing events across platforms.
Mr Kaye pointed out that such solutions would need to be agreed not just among market participants but also among regulators, to prevent regulatory arbitrage. “Collaboration on this issue is absolutely fundamental,” he said. “FIX is well advanced on many fronts and we welcome other market participants to join the conversation.”
The FIX Trading Community is an independent global community where capital markets firms come together to solve common issues and shape the evolution of capital markets. FIX groups in over 60 countries are working on a range of global issues including digital assets; reference data; carbon trading; AI; algo trading; FICC and ETFs, while country and regional committees work together to manage local regulation and market structure matters.
For further information and interviews with Jim Kaye: Kristin Westlake, The Continuum Partners | kwestlake@thecontinuumpartners.com | +61 416 219 358/+1 (604) 966 1410
