Fintechs can boost platform trading activity with tokenization: Republic raised $150M to add digital securities to its investing platform. These divide expensive assets into more liquid blockchain tokens.

TCH also added a new tokenization capability to the RTP Network, per another press release. Secure Token Exchange (STE) issues tokens to replace a customer's bank account and routing numbers, which can then be used to complete transactions. PNC Bank and financial data-sharing provider Akoya already use STE.

Visa plans to cut fees for merchants that process below $250,000 in Visa credit card volume—which it says composes 90% of US businesses—and also offers discounts to merchants that use tokenization software or provide certain transaction data. Cumulatively, the changes will increase fees by $475 million, per CMSPI estimates.

Industry executives we spoke with raised the issue of levels of authentication, end-client identification and authentication, authorization within a fintech’s software flow, authentication between a fintech’s and bank’s systems, and between systems accessible by developers, and standards for encryption and tokenization.

Technologies such as tokenization or biometric identifiers offer promise for authentication solutions. Staying competitive, agile, and responsive is even more critical as open banking breaks down barriers and lets new players—many digitally native—enter the market.

Tokenization. You can tokenize all sorts of assets that were not necessarily tradable before but can now be priced on a blockchain. For example, if you like gambling, you can buy a tokenized stock based on how many points a soccer team is going to score. That's not a practical example of what can be done, but it's an imaginative one.

Temenos’ client banks will be able to use Taurus to roll out three key functions to their own customers: managing digital assets such as crypto, acting as custodians, and using tokenization—the latter is the process of creating a security record on blockchain to enable trading of new digital assets.