CONTRIBUTORS
Sandy Kaul
Head of Innovation
Franklin Templeton
Robert Crossley
Head of Industry Advisory Services
Franklin Templeton
Alegria Apikelis
Senior Analyst
Franklin Templeton
Janice Deringer
Senior Analyst
Franklin Templeton
Samuel Huddart
Senior Analyst
Franklin Templeton
This is the third article in the Future of Investing series, drawing insights from our annual industry-wide survey.1 Please refer to The Future of Investing: 2024/25 Edition—Overview for a summary of the key findings as well as all other preceding articles.
Preview
Efforts to move cross-border payments onto crypto-inspired rails are advancing from pilot to minimum viable product phases across many regions of the world. While initiatives to move tradable assets onto these same rails are lagging, the speed of change is accelerating. The trajectory of the asset management industry points to today’s financial market infrastructure migrating over time onto the same blockchain rails that the payment industry is adopting. This would significantly change the way that the global securities and fund industry operates.
Re-platforming the traditional financial market infrastructure has the potential to create significant operational efficiency in capital markets at a time when global asset management firms have seen, on average, an 80% increase in their net operating costs between 2010 and 2023, and a simultaneous 15% fall in their revenues.2 Crypto markets, on the other hand, based on new technology and without legacy systems, on the other hand, operate far more efficiently, effectively and openly and with far less friction than today’s 50-year-old financial market infrastructure.
Today’s financial ecosystem is built around a session-based approach that sees regionally and temporally distinct markets open and close at set intervals and where no trading takes place over weekends or national holidays. Contrast this with crypto markets which are global and trade 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Unlike crypto markets, where anyone can participate if they have access to an internet connection, only registered broker-dealers and market-makers can directly access the infrastructure of today’s financial markets and trade securities, and these entities act as intermediaries, gate-keeping access for other participants. In the crypto ecosystem, all data is on-chain and openly available, allowing for real-time data and valuations: In traditional markets, many investments (especially private ones) price only on an intermittent schedule, leading to prices that are out of sync with other portfolio holdings.
This problem of data asymmetry and its creation of reconciliation needs also presents itself during settlement. Broker-dealers settle their daily transactions on a netted basis via a process known as book-entry, which is facilitated by a centralized clearing house. A second set of investor records for the beneficial owner of transactions is maintained by each broker-dealer individually to show account-level holdings. These records must be reconciled across firms, a process that inevitably results in some trade details not matching and then requiring additional manual operational inquiry before they can be processed. Without issues, this process takes a minimum of one or more days after a transaction occurs. Mismatched trades may take several days to process and may even end up being cancelled.
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For more information or to request a presentation on the 2024/25 Future of Investing findings, please contact your Franklin Templeton representative or reach us directly at [email protected]
Endnotes
- On an annual basis, Franklin Templeton’s Industry Advisory Services team conducts off-the-record, unscripted interviews of leaders across the financial services industry. This year, we were fortunate enough to hear from 85 leading thinkers controlling over US$50.1 trillion of assets under management across the financial services industry about their views on the future of investing between March and September of 2024. Input came from a broad cross-section of the industry—asset owners, private banks, wealth managers, consultants, investment managers, crypto firms, academics, industry leaders and fintech firms. Conversations took place formally as part of free-ranging, qualitative, off-the-record, survey interviews, and informally during one-on-one sessions where the implications and plans for each organization are discussed and explored. Each of these inputs added to an emerging picture of an industry that is changing rapidly and across multiple dimensions. Interviews were conducted globally with about two-thirds of discussions held with leaders of firms based in the United States, and the other third spread between Europe and Asia.
- Source: Kitonyi, Nicholas. “JPMorgan’s Digital Assets Product Onyx Processing Up to $2B Daily.” NFTgators. October 5, 2023.
WHAT ARE THE RISKS?
All investments involve risks, including possible loss of principal.
Companies in the technology sector have historically been volatile due to the rapid pace of product change and development within the sector. Artificial Intelligence is subject to various risks, including potentially rapid product obsolescence, theft, loss, or destruction of cryptographic keys, the possibility that digital asset technologies may never be fully implemented, cybersecurity risk, conflicting intellectual property claims, and inconsistent and changing regulations.
Blockchain and cryptocurrency investments are subject to various risks, including inability to develop digital asset applications or to capitalize on those applications, theft, loss, or destruction of cryptographic keys, the possibility that digital asset technologies may never be fully implemented, cybersecurity risk, conflicting intellectual property claims, and inconsistent and changing regulations. Speculative trading in bitcoins and other forms of cryptocurrencies, many of which have exhibited extreme price volatility, carries significant risk; an investor can lose the entire amount of their investment. Blockchain technology is a new and relatively untested technology and may never be implemented to a scale that provides identifiable benefits. If a cryptocurrency is deemed a security, it may be deemed to violate federal securities laws. There may be a limited or no secondary market for cryptocurrencies.
Digital assets are subject to risks relating to immature and rapidly developing technology, security vulnerabilities of this technology (such as theft, loss, or destruction of cryptographic keys), conflicting intellectual property claims, credit risk of digital asset exchanges, regulatory uncertainty, high volatility in their value/price, unclear acceptance by users and global marketplaces, and manipulation or fraud. Portfolio managers, service providers to the portfolios and other market participants increasingly depend on complex information technology and communications systems to conduct business functions. These systems are subject to a number of different threats or risks that could adversely affect the portfolio and their investors, despite the efforts of the portfolio managers and service providers to adopt technologies, processes and practices intended to mitigate these risks and protect the security of their computer systems, software, networks and other technology assets, as well as the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information belonging to the portfolios and their investors.
ETFs trade like stocks, fluctuate in market value and may trade above or below the ETF’s net asset value. Brokerage commissions and ETF expenses will reduce returns. ETF shares may be bought or sold throughout the day at their market price on the exchange on which they are listed. However, there can be no guarantee that an active trading market for ETF shares will be developed or maintained or that their listing will continue or remain unchanged. While the shares of ETFs are tradable on secondary markets, they may not readily trade in all market conditions and may trade at significant discounts in periods of market stress.
Any companies and/or case studies referenced herein are used solely for illustrative purposes; any investment may or may not be currently held by any portfolio advised by Franklin Templeton. The information provided is not a recommendation or individual investment advice for any particular security, strategy, or investment product and is not an indication of the trading intent of any Franklin Templeton managed portfolio.