Citibank has teamed up with Switzerland’s SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) to tokenise the $75bn private equity market, in a move aimed at streamlining settlement and custody through blockchain infrastructure.

Announced at the Point Zero Forum in Switzerland, the initiative will see Citi serve as custodian and issuer agent for tokenised late-stage pre-IPO equities using SDX’s regulated blockchain-based Central Securities Depository (CSD). The new platform is expected to go live in Q3 2025.

The partnership aims to address persistent inefficiencies in private equity transactions, which often rely on paper documents and manual processes, with settlement periods typically ranging from five to eight weeks. Citi’s Nisha Surendran, Digital Asset Emerging Solutions Lead at Citi Ventures, noted that blockchain provides a much-needed foundation for automating private market transactions and enhancing investor visibility.

“The most notable characteristic of private markets is that there is no infrastructure, at least nothing scalable,” Surendran said. “These investments are also hampered by the fact they don’t flow into investors’ wealth statements like other public securities do.”

SDX CEO David Newns added that the collaboration reflects growing interest in real-world asset tokenisation and bridges the gap between innovation and regulatory compliance. “Many hopeful Web3 projects saw blockchain rails as a way to streamline outdated processes and enable easy access and distribution for private markets,” he said.

The move positions Citi as a key player in the tokenisation of real-world assets, which is rapidly gaining traction across both traditional financial institutions and the crypto sector.

Source: Coinspeaker