Citi has teamed up with Swiss post-trade group SDX in a bid to develop tokenisation for private market assets.
The partnership, announced at the Point Zero Forum in Switzerland this week, will see Citi tokenise, settle and safekeep assets on SDX's digital central securities depositary platform.
This in turn will bring late-stage pre-IPO equities to institutional and eligible investors on the SDX platform, according to a statement.
Tokenisation, once described as a solution looking for a problem, has recently been seen as a way to generate greater liquidity and investor access to private market assets.
The venture is expected to go live in the third quarter of 2025.
"This initiative will distinguish itself in the industry by using SDX’s regulated blockchain based technology to enable the efficient distribution of shares in mature international private companies, which are expected to generate strong investor interest," said David Newns, head of SDX.
“Switzerland's regulatory framework and SDX's infrastructure allows Citi to bring a new solution to market using technology to solve for challenges in private markets for issuers and investors," said Marni McManus, Citi country officer and head of banking for Switzerland, Monaco and Liechtenstein.
"Private markets is a major and growing opportunity and our work with SDX promises to simplify and digitise what is essentially a manual and paper-driven industry today,” said McManus.