Tokenisation in Switzerland: Real-World Assets on Blockchain

The Tokenisation Thesis

Tokenisation is the process of representing ownership of real-world assets — equity, debt, funds, real estate, commodities — as digital tokens on a blockchain network. The tokens are securities: they represent legal ownership rights and obligations that are enforceable under applicable law.

The tokenisation thesis is compelling because traditional financial assets suffer from three structural inefficiencies that blockchain technology can address:

Settlement inefficiency: Traditional securities settle T+2 (two business days after trade). DLT securities settle T+0 or T+1, reducing counterparty risk and freeing up collateral.

Fragmentation: Traditional securities are held through chains of custodians, brokers, and central depositories. Each intermediary adds cost and delay. DLT securities held in direct custody eliminate intermediary layers.

Illiquidity: Many valuable assets — private equity, real estate, infrastructure — are structurally illiquid because the transaction costs and minimum investment sizes of traditional capital markets are too high for secondary trading. Tokenisation enables fractionalisation (lower minimum investment) and secondary market trading on regulated exchanges.

Switzerland has become the global leader in institutional tokenisation because it is the only jurisdiction with the complete legal, regulatory, and institutional infrastructure that tokenisation requires: statutory DLT securities law (the DLT Act), FINMA-licensed banks with tokenisation capabilities (Sygnum, AMINA), and a regulated DLT securities exchange (SIX Digital Exchange). For a deeper analysis of the specific transactions and market participants driving real-world asset tokenisation in Zug, see our dedicated sector coverage.

The Legal Foundation: DLT Securities

Switzerland’s Federal Act on the Adaptation of Federal Law to Developments in Distributed Ledger Technology (the DLT Act, effective February 1, 2021) created the statutory foundation for tokenisation by establishing the “DLT security” (Registerwertrecht) category.

A DLT security under the Code of Obligations is a security right that:

1. Exists as an entry in a distributed electronic register
2. Provides all parties with access to the registered information
3. Is protected against modification through technical means

DLT securities have the same legal character as traditional securities — they can be equity, debt, or fund interests — but exist only on-chain. There is no paper certificate, no CSD entry, and no custodian maintaining a separate record. The blockchain record IS the legal instrument.

This statutory foundation means that Swiss tokenisation is not dependent on contractual workarounds or regulatory forbearance — it is built on explicit statutory rights. The token holder’s rights are defined by Swiss law, not by the issuer’s contractual promises.

The Institutional Tokenisation Infrastructure

Sygnum Bank: Integrated Tokenisation and Custody

Sygnum Bank is the most active institutional tokenisation platform in Switzerland. As a FINMA-licensed bank with both banking and securities dealer licences, Sygnum can:

• Issue DLT securities (equity, bonds, fund interests) on behalf of clients within its regulatory framework
• Provide custody of the issued DLT securities (segregated from Sygnum’s own assets, with DLT Act insolvency protection)
• Trade DLT securities on regulated venues
• Provide corporate banking services for the issuers

The integration of issuance, custody, and banking within a single FINMA-licensed entity is Sygnum’s most significant competitive differentiator in the tokenisation market. Issuers do not need to interact with multiple regulated entities — Sygnum handles the complete lifecycle.

Sygnum’s tokenisation platform has been used for:

• Private equity tokenisation: Enabling institutions to issue fractionalised equity in FINMA-compliant form
• Corporate bonds: Faster settlement and lower issuance costs than traditional bond mechanics
• Fund tokenisation: Intraday settlement for fund units (compared to T+1 or T+2 for traditional fund settlement)

AMINA Bank: Multi-Jurisdictional Tokenisation

AMINA Bank, with its regulatory permissions across Switzerland, Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, and Singapore, provides a multi-jurisdictional tokenisation capability particularly valuable for issuers targeting Asian and Middle Eastern institutional investors alongside European ones.

AMINA’s tokenisation products leverage its international presence to offer:

• Swiss DLT securities issuance (FINMA framework)
• Distribution to institutional investors in Asia-Pacific and Middle East through AMINA’s licensed operations
• Custody across jurisdictions

SIX Digital Exchange: The Regulated Secondary Market

The SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) — operated by SIX Group, the operator of the Swiss Stock Exchange — holds the world’s first DLT trading facility licence (issued under the DLT Act by FINMA). SDX provides:

Primary issuance: Issuers can list DLT securities on SDX, providing immediate access to SDX’s institutional investor base.

Secondary trading: Institutional investors can trade DLT securities on SDX with the same regulatory protections as traditional exchange-listed securities.

Settlement: SDX combines trading and settlement in a single infrastructure — DLT securities settle on-chain immediately after trade, without the separate settlement infrastructure required for traditional securities.

d-CHF: SDX has worked with the Swiss National Bank on digital Swiss franc (d-CHF) for settlement — a wholesale CBDC used to settle DLT securities transactions in central bank money.

SDX has listed tokenised bonds from major Swiss issuers including UBS, Julius Baer, and SIX Group itself — demonstrating that Switzerland’s largest financial institutions are participating in the DLT securities market, not merely observing it.

Asset Classes in Focus

Private Equity Tokenisation

Private equity is the asset class with the most compelling tokenisation value proposition. Traditional private equity:

• Minimum investment: Typically $5-25 million (institutional-only)
• Liquidity: Zero secondary market for the 10-year fund life
• Administration: Quarterly reporting, capital calls, complex waterfall calculations

Tokenised private equity:

• Minimum investment: Can be reduced to $10,000-$100,000 (broader investor access)
• Liquidity: Secondary trading possible through regulated venues like SDX
• Administration: Smart contracts automate capital calls, distributions, and reporting

Switzerland’s DLT Act provides the statutory framework for tokenised private equity as DLT securities. Sygnum’s tokenisation platform has been used by Swiss private equity firms and portfolio companies to issue equity tokens accessible to a broader institutional investor base than traditional private equity structures allow.

Bond Tokenisation

Bond tokenisation reduces the friction of traditional bond markets:

Settlement: Tokenised bonds settle T+0 vs T+2 for traditional bonds Coupon payments: Automated through smart contracts — no manual payment instruction, no nostro/vostro reconciliation Minimum denomination: Traditional bonds have €100,000+ minimum denominations; tokenised bonds can be any denomination Investor access: Tokenised bonds can be distributed to a global institutional investor base without the correspondent banking infrastructure of traditional bond settlement

UBS, Credit Suisse (before its acquisition by UBS), and other major Swiss banks have issued tokenised bonds on SDX and on blockchain infrastructure managed by Sygnum and AMINA.

Fund Tokenisation

Fund tokenisation addresses the structural inefficiency of traditional fund settlement:

Intraday liquidity: Traditional UCITS funds settle T+1 or T+2 — investors cannot move between funds without bearing settlement risk. Tokenised funds settle T+0, enabling intraday rebalancing.

Fractionalisation: Traditional fund minimums of $100,000+ exclude many investors. Tokenised fund units can be any denomination.

Operational efficiency: Smart contract automation reduces fund administration costs — transfer agent, registrar, and settlement functions can be automated.

Real Estate Tokenisation

Real estate tokenisation remains nascent but is one of the most frequently discussed tokenisation applications. Switzerland’s extensive private wealth market — the country manages approximately $3 trillion in private banking assets — creates institutional demand for alternative real estate exposure structures.

Swiss real estate tokenisation challenges include: land registry integration (Swiss cantonal land registries are not yet blockchain-integrated), real estate transaction taxes, and the complexity of real estate legal structures (SPV, direct ownership, collective investment schemes).

Progress is being made: Sygnum and several Swiss real estate companies have explored tokenised real estate structures, and the Swiss Federal Council has indicated willingness to consider land registry digitalisation.

The Global Competitive Landscape

Switzerland is not alone in pursuing institutional tokenisation. Competing jurisdictions:

EU (MiCA + DLT Pilot Regime): The EU’s DLT Pilot Regime allows regulated experimentation with DLT securities trading and settlement. However, it is a pilot — temporary permissions for specific activities — rather than a permanent statutory framework. Switzerland’s DLT Act provides permanent, statutory rights.

Singapore (MAS Project Guardian): Singapore’s MAS has run extensive tokenisation pilots (Project Guardian) with major banks including HSBC, JPMorgan, and DBS. Singapore has strong institutional infrastructure but lacks Switzerland’s permanent statutory DLT securities framework.

UAE (ADGM): Abu Dhabi’s ADGM has created a regulatory framework for tokenised securities. AMINA Bank’s Abu Dhabi presence gives Crypto Valley direct access to the UAE tokenisation market.

UK (Digital Securities Sandbox): The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) launched a Digital Securities Sandbox in 2024, enabling experimentation with tokenised securities. The UK has strong financial infrastructure but is still in the sandbox/pilot phase.

Switzerland leads because it is the only jurisdiction with a permanent statutory framework (not a sandbox or pilot), an active regulated exchange (SIX Digital Exchange), and FINMA-licensed banks providing complete tokenisation services.

2024-2025 Market Development

The tokenisation sector saw significant institutional momentum in 2024:

BlackRock’s BUIDL fund: BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, launched a tokenised money market fund (BUIDL) on Ethereum — the largest single demonstration of institutional asset management participation in the tokenised securities market.

Franklin Templeton: Another top-10 global asset manager operating tokenised money market funds on blockchain infrastructure.

Swiss National Bank CBDC experiments: The SNB’s Project Helvetia explored settlement of tokenised bonds using wholesale digital Swiss francs — demonstrating central bank engagement with DLT securities settlement.

These developments validated the tokenisation thesis at institutional scale and accelerated Crypto Valley’s positioning as the regulatory and infrastructure leader for the sector.

Internal Links

• The Swiss DLT Act: How Switzerland Legalised Tokenised Securities
• FINMA Crypto Banking Framework: How Switzerland Licences Digital Asset Banks
• Sygnum Bank: The World’s First Regulated Digital Asset Bank
• AMINA Bank AG: From SEBA to Switzerland’s Second Digital Asset Bank
• DeFi in Switzerland: Crypto Valley’s Decentralised Finance Ecosystem