The July brief: post-trade change, timing of the essence

Snapshot of this brief:

• DLT project budgets have risen on average 20% YoY, but institutional investor engagement remains low despite more than 40% of projects targeting the buy-side 
• European markets switch to T+1 settlement simultaneously on 11 October 2027, with 79% of EU firms actively engaged today, well ahead of the North American transition at the same stage. 
• Agentic AI capability is doubling roughly every seven months; how do we do this inside a regulated institution?
• Roughly 40% of firms are reviewing their NAV strategies as private markets and manual asset servicing collide
• Across every theme, two forces recur: government-related risk and technology as the deciding differentiator