The blockchain-for-Wall-Street narrative has fizzled so many times over the last decade that it’s become something of an industry punchline. Yet in late 2025, one platform is stubbornly refusing to follow the hype-cycle script. Broadridge Financial Solutions, one of the most quietly influential infrastructure giants in global finance, has announced that its Distributed Ledger Repo (DLR) platform processed an average of $368 billion in daily transactions during November, totaling a massive $7.4 trillion for the month.

That’s not “pilot volume.” That’s not “proof-of-concept momentum.” That is full-fledged, systemically relevant scale. And perhaps the most striking part is how quickly it’s grown: a 466% YoY surge compared with November 2024.

Simply put, tokenization isn’t the future tense anymore—it’s the present.

The Year Tokenization Finally Grew Up

The industry has spent years pitching tokenized assets as the inevitable evolution of financial markets, promising instant settlement, reduced counterparty exposure, real-time collateral mobility, and all sorts of elegant efficiencies.

Most platforms stayed stuck in the “cool demo” phase.

Broadridge, however, quietly built something that institutions actually want to use at size—a rare feat in capital-markets technology, where complexity kills even the best ideas.

“We’re unlocking new levels of efficiency, liquidity, and investor access,” said Horacio Barakat, Head of Digital Innovation at Broadridge. “Tokenization has moved from concept to real-world transformation.”

Barakat’s assertion isn’t marketing—it’s math. $368 billion in daily repo activity means top-tier banks are willing to trust distributed-ledger rails for some of the most essential short-term funding flows in global markets.

If there’s any corner of finance that rejects immature tech, it’s repo.

Why Repo Is Tokenization’s First Big Break

The repo market is one of the beating hearts of global liquidity, where institutions lend each other cash against high-quality collateral—often Treasuries—on terms measured in hours or days. It’s a market defined by tight spreads, brutal competition, and razor-thin tolerance for inefficiency.

DLR’s pitch is simple but powerful:

• Tokenized collateral can move instantly, not in hours
• Settlement risk drops materially
• Operational friction falls
• Margin and liquidity optimization becomes real-time
• Intraday repo becomes easier and more automated

It’s a perfect proving ground: high volume, high value, low patience.

If tokenization works here, it can work anywhere.

Broadridge’s Not-So-Secret Advantage: It Already Runs Half of Wall Street

One reason DLR’s adoption has skyrocketed is that Broadridge isn’t a blockchain startup trying to sell disruption to incumbents. It is the incumbent.

A few reminders:

• Broadridge technology underpins over $15 trillion in daily trading.
• Its systems generate 7+ billion investor communications per year.
• It serves nearly every major global financial institution.
• It’s a S&P 500 company with 15,000+ employees in 21 countries.

When Broadridge builds something, institutions don’t ask, “Is this credible?” They ask, “Where do we plug in?”

That credibility—combined with the industry’s growing hunger for efficiency—explains why tokenized repo is exploding now while other tokenization projects are still in beta purgatory.

The Broader Trend: Tokenization Is Entering Its Industrial Phase

The past two years have seen a noticeable shift across capital markets. Tokenization is no longer confined to crypto-driven hype cycles. Instead, traditional finance has taken the lead:

• Major custodians are rolling out tokenized cash and collateral solutions.
• Central banks are running wholesale CBDC trials with real institutional participants.
• Asset managers are tokenizing money-market funds and private credit portfolios.
• Global banks are experimenting with cross-margining and intraday liquidity via DLT.

In this context, Broadridge’s $368 billion daily volume is less an outlier and more a leading indicator.

2025 is the year tokenization moved from “interesting technology” to trusted financial infrastructure.

Why the 466% YoY Surge Matters

Growth stats are easy to cite, harder to contextualize. A 466% jump in daily volume means:

1. Large institutions are scaling their usage, not dabbling
2. Tokenized repo fits into existing operational flows, not as a bolt-on
3. Liquidity is deepening, allowing more participants to transact confidently
4. Network effects are kicking in, attracting additional banks and dealers
5. Regulatory comfort is increasing, often the final barrier to new rails

Most fintech innovations plateau long before they ever make it to production, let alone widespread adoption. DLR’s growth curve is a sign that tokenization—long trapped in whitepaper limbo—has earned a place in the daily machinery of global markets.

Traditional Meets Digital: The New Capital-Markets Architecture

Barakat describes tokenization as a “foundational shift,” and that may sound like standard fintech bravado. But the architecture of global markets really is transforming.

We’re seeing a convergence:

• Traditional rails (custody, clearing, treasury operations)
• Digital rails (DLT-based collateral, tokenized assets, programmable settlement)

This hybrid model allows institutions to modernize without rewriting entire infrastructures—essentially putting turbochargers on existing engines.

In practical terms, tokenization is becoming:

• The “smart plumbing” beneath repo, collateral, and liquidity
• A way to fractionalize and mobilize assets in real time
• A bridge between legacy systems and next-gen settlement networks
• A catalyst for new products and intraday markets
• A foundation for everything from programmable collateral to 24/7 T+0 settlement

Broadridge is positioning itself as one of the key bridge-builders between these two financial universes.

The Bigger Market Question: Who’s Next?

With DLR volumes exploding, the competitive landscape gets interesting.

Rivals in the tokenization and digital-infrastructure race include:

• DTCC (with Project Ion and various digital settlement pilots)
• Clearstream and Euroclear (tokenized collateral mobility)
• HSBC’s Orion platform
• JP Morgan’s Onyx Digital Assets (already facilitating tokenized collateral)
• Securitize, Provenance, and Avalanche (increasingly institutional-facing)

Yet Broadridge brings something most others don’t:
deep, decades-long relationships with the operational cores of global finance.

That might prove to be the single most important advantage in tokenization’s next phase, where integration—not novelty—is the real currency.

Why Trusted Infrastructure Partners Matter Now

Institutions embarking on tokenization initiatives increasingly want more than a platform. They want:

• Regulatory credibility
• Integrated settlement workflows
• Proven resilience
• Interoperability with existing systems
• A partner that won’t disappear when markets get rough

Broadridge fits that mold perfectly. And as capital markets look for dependable, scalable bridges to digital ecosystems, vendors with trust plus technology are best positioned to lead the shift.

That’s essentially Broadridge’s sweet spot.

What Comes Next

If November’s numbers are any guide, DLR’s adoption curve isn’t slowing. With banks under pressure to squeeze efficiency out of every part of the balance sheet—and with regulators increasingly open to DLT-based settlement—tokenized repo may be only the beginning.

Expect broader digitization across:

• Intraday liquidity markets
• Securities lending
• Collateral transformation
• Corporate actions
• Margin and treasury workflows
• Cross-border settlements

The real inflection point will come when tokenized collateral, tokenized cash, and tokenized securities can all move on interoperable rails. Several major institutions are already quietly working toward this.

And when that happens, the daily $368 billion number we see today might look quaint.

Tokenization is no longer waiting for adoption. It’s here—and scaling faster than anyone predicted.