Citi Securities Services Evolution 2025

38 | Securities Services Evolution 2025 project continues, withDrex (Digital Real) being used as the underlying settlement asset in a large number of use cases across the industry. Whilst still largely payments focused, the expectation is clearly that this experimentation scales into the (institutional) securities space. Elsewhere, Argentina is preparing to allow “any technological format” for financial instruments, with the ComisionNacional de Valores (CNV) set to release regulations in 2025 for DLT- based securities and security token offerings; and El Salvador has announced plans to become a tokenization leader with its Ditobanx 52 planning a $300million issuance this year. Digital assets are leading the regulatory and client agendas across the region, with 34%of respondents expecting a significant impact from these assets by 2030, the highest of any region in theworld. What will themarket infrastructure look like that supports this digital asset growth? Contrary to the decentralized focus of 24%of respondents in North America, 71%of Latin American respondents expect to be using traditional FMIs for their digital asset networks. Where FMIs such as Brazil’s B3 have provided unique levels of support across the trade cycle to date, the expectation is clearly that they will continue to do so in theworld of digital assets. Asset Servicing: the tail of T+1 The automation of asset servicing saw a notable rise in importance for post-trade in Latin America, with 10% of respondents citing it as the most impactful post-trade change in 2025 jumping from just 3% in 2024. This is most probably a consequence of the transitions to US T+1 in 2024. Given the high volumes of offshore and cross-listed securities held by Latin American CSDs, the T+1 transition has triggered significant issues in managing notifications, instructions and tax processing for US-based or -linked securities. Interviews with B3 suggest that as many as, 60-70% of Brazil’s clearing incidents in the past year have been related to corporate actions, highlighting the need for standardization and automation. Manual processes and the customization of corporate events driven by market interpretation have exposed industry inefficiencies and a critical absence of automated systems in many markets, which firms are now urgently looking to correct. Key Dates 2025 2026 2027 2028+ T+1 H1: Chile, Peru &Colombia 53 Feb: Brazil PlatformModernization nuam:Nasdaqcollaborationcommenced 54 Mexico:Nasdaq (TBD) 55 B3 retail proxyvotingsystem(1H2025) B3newCSDplatform(1H2026) Dec (eta): B3 new clearing platform