Optimizing APAC Post-Trade: How Regional Standardization Can Unlock Growth
Investment is flowing into Asia-Pacific capital markets, but post-trade challenges are limiting growth. A new report from Nasdaq and the ValueExchange surveys market participants on blockers and post-trade harmonization opportunities in six select APAC markets.
Solving Post-Trade Frictions
To better understand the APAC post-trade landscape, our survey focused on a group of regional markets representing both developed and emerging economies: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand.
At a high level, 25% of participants in our survey said they were actively planning to grow their activity in these markets or prepare business cases to invest. However, almost half (46%) face artificial limits on their ability to trade and transact—blockers that are rooted in post-trade fragmentation.
Market structure issues and legacy platforms are leading to costs and errors in settlement, collateral and especially corporate actions, with the latter cited by 60% of respondents as a problem area.
The solution for market operators and participants is regional harmonization: 32% believed post-trade standards would deliver meaningful positive change and cost savings.
Highlights from the APAC Post-Trade Survey
Visualize the key findings around growth, post-trade blockers, standardization and how market ecosystems in the region are thinking about the future.
Who Did We Survey?
We spoke to 380 market participants in APAC, North America, Europe/Middle East/Africa and Latin America. Respondents cut across a diverse selection of roles and firms across the buy and sell sides, with three-quarters of total participants represented by:
Growth Encounters Market Issues
Increased market activity is powering expectations for strong in asset classes such as ETFs, unlisted equities and OTC derivatives. But obstacles impact local and offshore investors alike.
22%
Institutional Growth: Average AUM growth planned by investment banks from North America, Europe and APAC.
18%
Processing Costs: Share of respondents who believe their trade processing costs to be unnecessarily high in settlement.
76%
Corporate Actions: Share of respondents who believe their trade processing errors to be unnecessarily high in corporate actions.
39%
Legacy Reliance: Share of APAC market platforms older than 10 years, almost double the global average.
Asia’s capital markets are at a crossroads and regional standardization can offer double-digit cost savings.
Market participants overwhelmingly believe that harmonized rules and consolidated post-trade platforms will drive growth and resilience.
Cost Savings and Efficiencies at Stake
Survey respondents believed regional alignment can achieve 7.3% cost savings on average across post-trade functions, including:
Optimizing APAC Post-Trade: How Regional Standardization Can Unlock Growth
Nasdaq and the ValueExchange partnered to understand institutional investment in Asia-Pacific and how standards can lift post-trade blockers.
Download the ReportWhat Changes Do Market Participants Want?
The survey shows that regional harmonization is a mutually beneficial goal for both market operators and participants, but success depends on joint leadership and coordinated action. Respondents strongly favor:
- Harmonization of operating processes and rules in clearing, settlement and proxy voting
- Harmonization of post-trade messaging standards across markets in corporate actions
- Consolidation of platforms and account structures in repos, collateral management and securities lending
Tomorrow’s Headlines
Tokenization Grows
Asset tokenization is a key innovation opportunity: 15% of respondents planned to hold tokenized assets as a position by 2027 and 10% will leverage tokenization in collateral management.
AI Adoption Increases
Market participants are ramping up AI deployment: 11% plan to use GenAI in trade clearing and settlement by 2028, nearly triple the rate who responded the same in 2025.
Change Projects Activate
63% of respondents are planning change projects, with three-quarters of those projects focused on listed equities, ETFs and unlisted equities.
Explore Regional Insights & Expert Perspectives
Ally with Nasdaq Financial Technology
Nasdaq Financial Technology has a large presence across Asia-Pacific, serving both financial market infrastructures and market participants including banks, brokers and asset and fund managers. Our solutions span trading, clearing, risk, surveillance and central securities depositories for market operators, as well as end-to-end, cross-asset capital markets technology for participants to manage front, middle and back office functions.
Eqlipse CSD
Effectively manage multiple business opportunities including Settlement, Depository, Registry and Asset Servicing.
Learn MoreEqlipse Clearing
Leverage high-velocity, real-time, cross-asset class clearing and settlement with Nasdaq's Clearing Technology.
Learn MoreCalypso Clearing
Support multi-asset clearing, reduce risk, and boost efficiency—all in one scalable solution.
Learn More