Funds Tech

There is a fascinating challenge at the heart of tokenisation, one that our industry is now very well positioned to solve. The transparency that gives blockchain its unique power is exactly what needs our careful attention for full institutional adoption. Every transaction visible. Every balance exposed. Every counterparty relationship open for the world to see. For retail crypto, this openness was exciting and empowering. For institutional finance, we simply need to build the right balance.

Our portfolio embeds the assumption of continued AI growth with the following characteristics. Firstly, the expansion of AI in enterprise settings will likely increase demand for authoritative data to reduce fraudulent transactions and serve as a grounding truth for hallucination-prone agents in production environments – this benefits companies that control authoritative transaction data like Mastercard, Experian, and S&P Global.

The cybersecurity challenges of today and the link to the quantum computing challenges of tomorrow will feature at the upcoming FundsTech 2026 by Funds Europe, taking place in London on 29 April. Featuring a panel on Cybersecurity in Asset Management, the event will hear insights into the proliferation of cyber threats as AI, tokenisation, and cloud reliance grow. This will feature a frank conversation about resilience, regulation, and board accountability.

Funds Europe Intelligence has launched its latest industry guide titled A smarter approach:  AI & FinCrime in asset management compliance in partnership with FIS, providing insights into financial crime and compliance challenges at a time when the global compliance architecture is undergoing a seismic shift.

KBC, Belgium’s largest insurance-banking group, has selected Geneva-based fintech Taurus as its custody partner for its regulated crypto trading offering. The announcement follows the launch last month of a service by KBC allowing investors to buy and sell crypto assets. The offering covers Bitcoin and Ether and will operate on an execution-only basis for self-directed investors. Crypto trading will be conducted in line with applicable European regulation, including the MiCAR framework.

Ireland’s position as a financial services location is grounded in depth rather than novelty. Since the establishment of the International Financial Services Centre in the late 1980s, the country has built a substantial base across banking, payments, asset management, insurance and market infrastructure. Global firms have long operated regulated activities from Ireland, creating an institutional foundation that continues to shape its role today.

In early 2025, a technical failure at a single Amazon Web Services data centre brought down 113 cloud services for over seven hours. Banks couldn’t process transactions. Airlines faced delays. Smart home devices went dark. The outage showed how concentrating data infrastructure in one physical location can create portfolio risk.

Value investment manager Mondrian Investment Partners has selected FundGuard to update the fund accounting element of its investment operations platform. The selection follows a review of potential replacements.

fundcraft, a digital infrastructure provider for alternative asset managers, has appointed Christian Senitz as chief operating officer (COO) and opened an office in Paris. The Luxembpurg-based company said the moves signal a new phase in its execution and scaling strategy as it looks to grow its digital-native fund operations platform across Europe.

Laser Digital Asset Management, the asset management arm of Nomura’s digital assets subsidiary Laser Digital, has launched an upgraded tokenised Bitcoin-based fund aimed at institutional and eligible accredited investors. The Laser Digital Bitcoin Diversified Yield Fund SP seeks to generate excess returns on top of Bitcoin performance by combining long-only exposure to Bitcoin with diversified market-neutral strategies, including arbitrage, lending and options-based approaches.