The emergence of digital assets as an institutional asset class generate up to US$8 billion in net new revenues for wholesale banks by 2030, according to estimates by Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley. However, greater disruption is expected to stem from the redistribution of existing revenue streams, with up to US$82 billion of traditional revenue expected to migrate to digital rails.
This bullish scenario assumes that digital asset adoption would move beyond priority use cases and scale across a wider set of wholesale banking products. It also presumes widespread adoption across the broader financial ecosystem, facilitated by integration with customer-facing software that makes it seamless to transact natively on digital rails, in addition to vertical integration with bigtech platforms, especially stablecoins affiliated with Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Industry utilities and networks would also contribute to adoption by standardizing blockchain rails, enabling broader access and greater ease in onboarding participants.
In this scenario, tokenization would gain traction in capital markets and cryptocurrencies would expand as an asset class.
As adoption grows, tokenized money would become widely used as a both a payment and settlement asset, supporting the expansion of delivery-versus-payment and payment-versus-payment models across asset classes.
In this scenario, digital assets are projected to penetrate 11% of wholesale banking revenues, driven by cross-border payments (30%), and tokenized equities trading (15%). This would be driven by strong retail demand, and institutional adoption. Net new revenue pools would expand to US$16 billion, with banks capturing about 50% of this value.
Cross-border payments have long been considered one of the most promising areas for digital assets, given that today’s infrastructure is fragmented, expensive, and slow.
Several major banks have already started deploying digital assets and tokenized money. For example, JP Morgan’s institutional blockchain platform Kinexys processes about US$5 billion daily in tokenized bank deposits transfers, cross-border payment settlements, and tokenized asset management. SG Forge, meanwhile, is deploying EUR and USD stablecoins. Similarly, 37 European banks are participating in the Qivalis EUR stablecoin initiative.
Tokenization also presents a significant opportunity by making equity issuance, trading, settlement, and collateral management faster, more transparent, and more capital-efficient.
Financial institutions are actively building platforms to tokenize traditional and illiquid assets: Citi’s new offering developed with the SIX Digital Exchange tokenizes shares of late-stage private companies; UBS Tokenize is a institutional tokenization platform for bonds, structured notes, and tokenized funds; and Goldman Sachs’ GS Digital Asset Platform (DAP) supports digital issuance, tokenized fund interest, and blockchain settlement.
Citi expects public market equities to achieve one of the highest tokenization penetration rates among key financial asset types. By 2030, approximately US$5.4 trillion worth of public equities assets could exist in tokenized form, representing roughly 66% of the total tokenized asset market.
Although the Oliver Wyman and Morgan Stanley report expects faster settlement and 24/7 trading hours to increase business activity and overall revenues for wholesale banks, these gains could be offset by lower profit margins as banks pass their reduced operating costs on to customers, and decreasing liquidity balances in accounts earning interests.
Furthermore, it notes that the rapid adoption of digital assets could accelerate the entry of non-bank competitors, which could capture up to 10% of the market share and increase competitive pressure on incumbents.
AI in wholesale banking
Besides estimates on the impact of digital assets on wholesale banking, the report also examines the state of the industry, delving into 2025 developments and emerging trends. It highlights that while artificial intelligence (AI) investment in wholesale banking continues to increase, banks are struggling to convert this momentum into meaningful financial outcomes.
The Evident AI Index 2025, which assessed 50 of the world’s largest banks across North America, Europe, and Asia, found that only seven of the banks studied disclosed projected returns from all AI initiatives, and just four reported realized financial benefits.
However, among the banks that reported both projected and realized outcomes, early results are significant. JP Morgan reported annual AI spend of about US$2 billion, with realized benefits already matching this level as of 2025. France’s BNP Paribas stated EUR 635 million (US$723 million) in AI-driven benefits in 2025, with projections rising to EUR 750 million (US$860 million) by 2026. In Singapore, DBS reported SGD 1 billion (US$774 million) in economic value from AI in 2025, up from SGD 750 million (US$581 million) in 2024.
Other research mirror these gaps. A 2025 study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) of more than 1,250 firms worldwide found that only 5% of the organizations polled have taken significant AI actions and actually achieved AI value at scale. Conversely, 60% reported achieving no material value at all, noting minimal revenue and cost gains despite substantial investment. Another 35%, or 13 points more than in 2024, were scaling up their efforts and seeing some returns, but many of them admitted that they were not moving far enough or fast enough.
Despite this, AI investment continues to surge, with Wall Street analysts estimating US$1 trillion in total spending through 2027, CNBC reports.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Switzerland, based on image by freepik via Magnific
