By Koen Vanderhoydonk, Founder & CEO The Connector Central Securities Depositories have long been among the least visible but most essential institutions in financial markets. They do not usually attract headlines, yet they sit at the heart of trust in the system: safeguarding securities, supporting settlement, and helping ensure that markets function with certainty and order. For many years, the priorities for CSDs were clear. Stability, efficiency and compliance formed the

By Andrew Quinn, Managing Director & Co-Founder, FIDEO The next phase of FMI evolution will be defined less by technology theatre than by faster settlement, hybrid market architectures, operational resilience and the industry’s ability to build capability at scale. 1. Introduction The next big competitive divide in finance will sit below the customer interface. It will be defined by how money moves, how assets settle, and how trust holds when markets become faster, more digit

By Sofi Håkanson, Chief Growth Officer, Centiglobe Blockchain-based payments are moving rapidly into the financial mainstream, largely driven by recent regulatory developments such as MiCA in Europe and the GENIUS Act in the United States. For many countries, the technology promises faster cross-border payments, lower costs, and more efficient global trade. For emerging market economies, however, this innovation also creates a difficult policy and market infrastructure dile

By Matthew Barnard, Executive Director, BBD Financial market infrastructures sit at the centre of global finance, quietly enabling the movement of capital across exchanges, clearinghouses, and settlement systems at extraordinary scale. For decades, these systems have been engineered for stability above all else. Reliability, control and predictability were not just priorities, they were prerequisites. But that foundation is now under pressure. Markets are accelerating, settle