ICMA Fintech and Digitalisation Forum 2025

Key Market Trends Shaping Digital Capital Markets

Insights from the ICMA FinTech & Digitalisation Forum

Inveztor recently attended the ICMA FinTech & Digitalisation Forum, where market leaders across banks, issuers, asset managers, infrastructure providers and regulators discussed how digital capital markets are evolving in practice.

A clear message emerged throughout the day. Digitalisation is no longer about experimentation or future vision. The industry is now focused on execution, standards and scalable infrastructure that works across firms, jurisdictions and asset classes.

Four core trends stood out.

Common data standards are becoming core market infrastructure.
The Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT) and Common Domain Model (CDM) are increasingly viewed as the shared language enabling interoperability across issuance, reporting and lifecycle management. The market is moving beyond pilots into live deployments, driven by neutral industry bodies. By 2026, alignment to common standards will be foundational rather than optional.

Workflow convergence is replacing operational fragmentation.
Firms are actively addressing long-standing fragmentation across systems and processes. There is growing focus on cleaner data, common templates and harmonised deal information, including the creation of single “golden sources” to support downstream automation. End-to-end, connected workflows are becoming the target state.

Tokenisation and digital settlement are moving into scalable use cases.
Tokenisation is shifting from experimentation to repeatable, investable products, supported by improving regulatory clarity. Progress is most advanced in jurisdictions such as Singapore and Switzerland, alongside central bank initiatives around digital cash. Hybrid models bridging traditional and DLT infrastructure are expected to dominate in the near term, with 2026 seen as a pivotal year.

AI is becoming embedded in day-to-day market operations.
AI is now being deployed as a practical tool across information extraction, analytics, ESG assessment and decision support. Adoption is accelerating from pilots into production workflows, alongside a strong focus on governance, transparency and human oversight. Competitive advantage will be defined by execution, not experimentation.

Overall, the forum reinforced that capital markets are entering a more mature phase of digital transformation. The challenge ahead is no longer whether to digitalise, but how to do so in a way that scales, integrates and delivers tangible operational value.

At Inveztor, we continue to engage closely with these industry developments and apply them to the practical realities of capital markets workflows as these trends move from discussion to delivery.

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