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Real-world assets in digital banking: Bridging traditional and digital finance
Journal of Digital Banking,
10
(1),
54-74
(2025)
Abstract
Real-world assets (RWAs), including bonds, real estate and commodities, are tangible assets with economic value that contribute to the financial ecosystem. This paper will explore how RWAs are being integrated into novel digital banking platforms, focusing on the potential of blockchain technology, tokenisation and smart contracts. It aims to provide an in-depth look at two important areas — corporate banking and investments — while addressing current challenges, showcasing practical applications and illustrating how RWAs can help make financial services more inclusive. By lowering traditional barriers to entry, RWAs can potentially make investments more accessible to a wider audience, thereby creating opportunities for both individuals and financial institutions (FIs) to expand their assets under management (AUM) and financial service offerings. This paper seeks to offer actionable insights for digital banking professionals, encouraging further exploration and innovation in the RWA space. This article is also included in The Business & Management Collection which can be accessed at https://hstalks.com/business/.
Keywords: digital banking; real-world assets; blockchain; tokenisation
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Aly Madhavji is the Managing Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund, which invests in top-tier startups. He is a Knight on the highly anticipated TV Show CryptoKnights. He is a Limited Partner at Loyal VC and Draper Goren Holm. Aly consults organizations on emerging technologies such as INSEAD and the UN on solutions to help alleviate poverty. He served as Senior Blockchain Fellow at INSEAD and was recognized as a “Blockchain 100” Global Leader. He is an international award-winning author, publishing three books, and a columnist for leading Web3 publications. Aly served as a board member of Soluna Holdings (NASDAQ: SLNH) and on various advisory boards including the University of Toronto’s Governing Council, which manages a $2.5B budget. He is a mentor with Orbit Startups, an elite accelerator program operated by the venture fund SOSV with $1.5B+ AUM and the Mobile Only Accelerator (MOX). Aly is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Investment Manager. Aly holds a Master of Global Affairs as a Schwarzman Scholar from Tsinghua University (清华大学), a Master of Business Administration from INSEAD (Singapore and France), and a Bachelor of Commerce with Distinction from the University of Toronto.
Jerry Xu , is a high-impact leader in the financial technology, investment and financial services sectors with a career that spans Citigroup, Kepler Fi (a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund, GIC) and the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF). At SDF, he currently serves as the Early-Stage Fund Lead, investing primarily in Pre-seed to Series A fundraises on behalf of the Stellar Development Foundation. Jerry’s investment theses span blockchain with a deep focus on payments-based use cases such as cross-border payments, digital asset issuance and financial infrastructure and smart contract-enabled use cases such as real-world asset tokenisation and on-chain lending and borrowing. Before joining SDF, Jerry played a foundational role at Kepler Fi, a GIC Private Limited subsidiary. As a founding team member, he helped spearhead investments across all stages, joint ventures, fund strategy and formation and product launches focused on radically disrupting the traditional asset management industry. He is experienced across multiple asset classes and has backed and advised teams as early as pre-product to pre-Initial Public Offering (IPO) Past verticals and use cases that he oversaw included blockchain, machine learning-enabled payments and lending, machine-driven public and private market investing strategies, quantum computing and Big Data. Jerry holds a BSc (cum-Laude) in finance and accounting from New York University, Stern School of Business, completing his studies a semester early. He is also in the process of obtaining his MSc in Analytics with a focus on machine learning from The Georgia Institute of Technology.
