Tokenised Securities in Switzerland: Market Development and Investment Opportunity
The market for tokenised securities has moved well beyond the proof-of-concept phase. Global estimates for tokenised real-world assets under management reached approximately $12 billion at the close of 2025, with bonds constituting the largest category by volume and real estate the fastest-growing by number of instruments. Switzerland, by virtue of the DLT Act and the early launch of SIX Digital Exchange, has positioned itself as the institutional centre of gravity for regulated tokenised securities issuance. The opportunity is significant; the barriers to scale remain real.
The Global Market: Where Switzerland Sits
Tokenised securities span a widening range of asset classes. Bonds — sovereign, supranational, and corporate — have been the dominant category since the market’s inception, owing to their relatively standardised cash flow structures and the ease with which coupon payments can be automated via smart contract. Tokenised equities are structurally more complex, requiring integration with corporate law, shareholder registers, and proxy voting mechanisms; adoption has been slower but is accelerating, particularly among private companies seeking to manage cap tables on-chain.
Tokenised real estate has attracted considerable retail and semi-institutional interest as a vehicle for fractional ownership of assets previously accessible only to institutional investors. Private equity tokenisation — the representation of fund interests or individual portfolio company stakes as digital securities — is the most nascent category, though several Swiss platforms have begun offering such instruments to qualified investors.
Within this global landscape, Switzerland occupies a distinctive position. It is not the largest market by volume — the United States, through Broadridge’s DLT Repo platform and BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, commands greater absolute scale. But Switzerland is the jurisdiction with the most complete statutory framework for tokenised securities, which translates into lower legal risk for issuers and investors seeking regulatory clarity.
SIX Digital Exchange: The Regulated Infrastructure Layer
SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) is the cornerstone of Switzerland’s tokenised securities market. Launched in 2021 and holding the world’s first DLT trading facility licence under the Swiss DLT Act, SDX operates as a fully regulated digital exchange for the issuance, trading, and settlement of ledger-based securities. Its parent, SIX Group, is the operator of the Swiss Exchange (SIX Swiss Exchange) and SIX SIS, Switzerland’s central securities depository — a lineage that lends SDX both institutional credibility and deep connectivity to Switzerland’s existing financial market infrastructure.
SDX’s issuance record is notable. The World Bank issued a CHF 200 million digital bond via SDX in 2021, one of the first supranational digital bond issuances globally. Several Swiss cantons — including the Canton of Basel-Stadt and the Canton of Zurich — have issued digital bonds through the platform, validating the use of ledger-based securities for sovereign-grade issuers. Credit Suisse, before its emergency absorption into UBS in March 2023, completed digital bond issuances via SDX that demonstrated the framework’s viability for systemically important financial institutions.
SDX operates on a permissioned blockchain — its own purpose-built infrastructure rather than a public chain — with settlement in central bank money via the SNB’s Helvetia Project. This integration with central bank settlement distinguishes SDX from virtually all other tokenised securities platforms globally and eliminates the settlement risk that arises when tokenised securities are settled in stablecoin or commercial bank money.
The Private Market: Tokenisation Beyond SDX
SDX is the regulated apex of Switzerland’s tokenised securities market, but the market extends well beyond it. A secondary ecosystem of direct issuers and specialist platforms has developed, leveraging the DLT Act’s framework to bring tokenised instruments to market outside the SDX infrastructure.
Tokenestate, a Zug-based platform, has focused on tokenised real estate — offering fractional ownership of Swiss commercial and residential properties to qualified investors via ledger-based securities. BrickMark, backed by a consortium of European real estate investors, has pursued a similar model for higher-value commercial assets. Stableton has specialised in tokenised access to private markets, offering qualified investors exposure to late-stage private equity and venture capital funds through digital securities.
These platforms occupy a structurally different position from SDX. They are not DLT trading facilities — they do not operate trading venues — but they do issue and distribute ledger-based securities under the DLT Act framework, typically via direct placement to qualified investors under FinSA’s prospectus exemptions. Secondary market liquidity for instruments issued through these platforms remains limited, a structural constraint that is the principal barrier to broader adoption.
The Role of Swiss Banks in Distribution
Switzerland’s network of cantonal banks and large private banks is increasingly central to the distribution of tokenised securities. Several cantonal banks have either invested in SDX or executed tokenised bond issuances through it, creating a distribution pathway from digital primary market to traditional private banking clientele. Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), Switzerland’s largest cantonal bank, has been among the most active, offering digital bond custody and — via its investment platforms — tokenised securities access to a segment of its retail and high-net-worth client base.
UBS, as Switzerland’s dominant post-merger universal bank, has pursued its own tokenisation agenda in parallel with its integration of Credit Suisse’s digital assets operations. UBS’s tokenisation programmes have included structured products issued as ledger-based securities and experiments in tokenised fund units, with distribution across the bank’s global private banking network. The bank’s involvement signals the mainstreaming of tokenised securities from niche institutional experiment to product category.
Investor Demand Drivers
The investment case for tokenised securities rests on several structural advantages over their traditional equivalents.
Settlement efficiency is the most frequently cited benefit. Traditional bond settlement in Switzerland operates on a T+2 cycle, with a central securities depository acting as the definitive register. Ledger-based securities can settle in near-real time or on a T+0 basis, reducing counterparty exposure and freeing up collateral that would otherwise be locked in the settlement process. For repo markets and short-dated instruments, the efficiency gains are substantial.
Fractional ownership is the second major driver, particularly in real estate and private equity. A CHF 10 million commercial property that was previously accessible only to institutional investors can, when tokenised, be offered in CHF 1,000 parcels to a much wider investor base. This democratisation of access has driven retail interest in tokenised real assets, though regulatory constraints — notably the qualified investor requirements under FinSA — limit how far down-market Swiss tokenised securities can effectively reach.
Programmable compliance is the third driver, and in many respects the most transformative. Ledger-based securities can embed compliance logic — investor eligibility checks, transfer restrictions, automatic coupon payments — directly into the smart contract layer. This reduces the operational overhead of managing a securities register, particularly for instruments with complex eligibility criteria or frequent cash flow events.
Barriers to Market Growth
Despite these structural advantages, Switzerland’s tokenised securities market faces persistent headwinds that have constrained its growth relative to early projections.
Liquidity fragmentation is the most significant barrier. The secondary market for tokenised securities remains thin. Most ledger-based securities issued outside SDX lack any secondary market at all; investors acquire them at issuance and hold to maturity. Even on SDX, secondary market volumes have been modest relative to the primary issuance activity on the platform. Without secondary market liquidity, tokenised securities command an illiquidity premium that partially offsets their operational efficiency advantages.
Custody complexity presents a second challenge. Holding ledger-based securities requires either a regulated digital asset custodian or self-custody via a private key — neither of which is straightforward for traditional institutional investors whose custody infrastructure was built for paper-based or CREST/SIS-settled instruments. The emergence of regulated digital asset custody services from established custodians, including SEBA Bank and Sygnum Bank, is gradually resolving this friction, but full integration with traditional portfolio management systems remains incomplete.
Investor education constitutes the third barrier. Many institutional investment committees, pension fund boards, and family office investment teams remain unfamiliar with the legal characteristics of ledger-based securities. The question “what exactly do I own?” — and the associated due diligence around DLT system integrity, key management, and smart contract risk — demands an investment in understanding that many investors have yet to make.
Switzerland’s Competitive Position
Switzerland competes for tokenised securities issuance against Luxembourg (Europe’s largest fund domicile and a growing digital securities centre), Singapore (Asia-Pacific’s leading tokenised securities market, anchored by MAS’s Project Guardian), and — for instruments seeking EEA market access — Liechtenstein, whose Token Act provides a comprehensive legal framework alongside EU single market membership.
Luxembourg’s advantage lies in its mutual recognition with EU member states and its established fund distribution infrastructure. Singapore’s advantage is its scale as an Asian financial hub and MAS’s proactive regulatory engagement with tokenisation platforms. Liechtenstein’s advantage is EEA access — tokenised securities issued under Liechtenstein law can be passported across the EU single market, a capability Switzerland lacks.
Switzerland’s advantage is legal clarity and institutional depth. The DLT Act provides the most statutorily robust framework for ledger-based securities of any major jurisdiction. FINMA’s supervisory experience is unmatched in depth. And the presence of SDX — a fully regulated, SNB-connected digital exchange — gives Switzerland a market infrastructure that no competitor can currently replicate.
Outlook: 2026 to 2028
The trajectory of Switzerland’s tokenised securities market over the next three years will be shaped by three variables: secondary market development, custody infrastructure maturation, and regulatory evolution.
On secondary markets, SDX’s expansion of its participant base — bringing in additional market makers and buy-side participants — is the critical near-term catalyst. The platform’s integration with SIX Swiss Exchange’s existing market surveillance and participant frameworks provides a credible pathway to increased liquidity.
On custody, the continued buildout of regulated digital asset custody offerings from Swiss banks and specialist custodians will lower the barrier to institutional participation. ZKB’s digital asset custody service and UBS’s own custody infrastructure represent important steps in this direction.
On regulation, the Federal Council’s ongoing review of CISA and FMIA as they apply to tokenised structures will determine whether Switzerland can extend its regulatory lead or whether gaps in the framework — particularly around tokenised fund units and cross-border distribution — erode its competitive position.
Conclusion
Switzerland’s tokenised securities market is real, regulated, and growing. It is also, relative to the optimism of 2020 and 2021, maturing more slowly than its early proponents projected. The infrastructure is in place — legal, supervisory, and technical. The barriers that remain are principally about market structure and investor readiness rather than regulatory permission. For issuers seeking a stable, well-regulated domicile for tokenised instruments and for investors seeking exposure to the asset class under a robust legal framework, Switzerland remains the most compelling option in the European time zone.
Donovan Vanderbilt is a contributing editor at ZUG DLT, a publication of The Vanderbilt Portfolio AG, Zurich. The information presented is for educational purposes and does not constitute investment advice.