The Driving Growth in Asset Management 2026 report, based on responses from 300 senior executives across North America, Europe, EMEA and Asia-Pacific, found firms are becoming more selective about where they deploy resources amid market volatility, fee pressures and rising operational complexity.

Product expansion has fallen as a strategic priority, with 47% of respondents citing it compared with 60% in 2024, while the proportion prioritising product reduction increased from 5% to 28%.

"The central theme emerging from our study is a renewed focus on the core: core products, core capabilities, core markets and core client relationships," the report said.

The shift towards simplification is also reflected in operating models, with some firms prioritising a major target operating model redesign falling from 75% in 2024 to 46% in 2026. Enhancing quality and accuracy and controlling costs was identified as the leading operational priorities.

At the same time, the number of managers planning to outsource non-core activities to achieve their priorities more than doubled to 39% from 18% two years earlier.

Northern Trust head of asset managers and private markets for the Americas Ryan Burns said managers were focusing resources on areas where they could differentiate.

"Asset managers are pursuing growth with greater discipline and a sharper focus on the areas where they can differentiate," Burns said.

"Rather than pursuing broad-based expansion, firms are directing resources toward investment expertise, client outcomes and distribution, while extending successful strategies through vehicles such as ETFs, semi-liquid funds and collective investment trusts."

Cost pressures are also reshaping operating models with offshoring cited by 69% of respondents as a cost-control strategy, followed by automation and technology improvements at 52% and outsourcing non-core activities at 42%.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption has moved beyond experimentation, with every respondent reporting some form of deployment. The leading use cases include data accuracy and quality control, document management and research and report summarisation.

Northern Trust head of asset servicing for EMEA Nick Gilbert said AI's effectiveness would depend on the quality of underlying data.

"AI is moving from experimentation to implementation across the industry," Gilbert said.

"But its value will depend on the quality, governance and accessibility of the data beneath it. This is not just a technology issue; it is an operating model and resilience issue."

The survey also found more than half of managers plan to target new global markets, while firms increasingly favour strategic partnerships to support scale and operational efficiency.

New client types were identified by 54% of respondents as a growth priority, followed by expansion into new countries at 53% and technology-driven distribution channels at 50%.

The report said distribution is becoming more targeted and channel-focused, with managers increasingly looking to scale through ETF model portfolios, semi-liquid structures and retail wealth platforms.

"Managers are doing more with less, consolidating the number of providers they rely on and going deeper with the partners they trust," the report concluded.

The purpose-built capability automates critical fund administration processes through a connected ecosystem spanning custody, trade processing, corporate actions, investment accounting, tax and investor administration.

The single data layer and scalable technology solution provides fund managers with automated access to dedicated local operational expertise and support, while retaining custody capabilities.

It also offers end-to-end coverage across a wide range of fund types and asset classes, globally, and is exportable to other international markets, Automic said, resulting in faster processing, improved data integrity, embedded controls and greater transparency across the fund administration lifecycle.

The new offering builds on its established platform, connecting fund administration and custody in a unified operating model, which is supported by Northern Trust.

Automic Group chief executive Mal McHutchison explained the new offering eliminates the "traditional fragmentation" the industry possesses.

"Today marks an important milestone for Automic as we introduce our enhanced purpose-built fund administration capability, further expanding upon Automic's institutional-grade company and fund registry and employee share plan offering," McHutchison said.

"Automic's fund administration capability is delivered through its proprietary technology platform and supported by our market expertise together with Northern Trust's global custody infrastructure, to create a complete and connected operating model.

"Our end-to-end capability gives fund managers confidence in a full-service solution that eliminates the traditional fragmentation across registry, administration and custody services."

Northern Trust head of Australia and New Zealand Leon Stavrou said he is pleased to support Automic's expansion of its services.

"By connecting Automic's innovative platform with Northern Trust's global custody network and foreign exchange capabilities, this model delivers a scalable solution that helps managers access institutional-grade infrastructure while maintaining a strong local service experience," Stavrou said.

"The collaboration reflects our shared commitment to supporting the evolving needs of Australia's investment industry."

Founded in 2015, Automic Group is an Australian registry, fund administration and investor services provider, currently supporting more than 120 fund managers across 850 listed and unlisted funds across the region, representing about $100 billion in assets under administration.

The company was acquired by private equity investor Advent International in September 2025.

"We see strong alignment between Automic Group and Adventʼs investment philosophy. We have identified a high-quality business in one of Adventʼs key sectors: business and financial services. We are confident we can deliver significant value creation by applying our hands-on, in-market and global operational expertise," Advent managing director and head of Australia and New Zealand Beau Dixon said at the time.

"We are pleased to be making our first acquisition since opening Adventʼs Sydney office, and we look forward to working closely with Automic Group's management team to support its next phase of growth."

The deal will see Netwealth acquire 100% of Scale Up Platform Solutions, which trades as Paradino, with the transaction expected to complete by the end of October, subject to customary conditions.

Netwealth will pay $15 million in cash and $5 million in ordinary shares, with up to a further $9 million in earn-out and retention consideration payable over four years.

The group will also invest a further $10 million in Paradino over the next two years to accelerate its product road map and expand its capabilities across the Australian financial advice market.

Paradino currently supports more than 500 financial advisers and generates $1.6 million in annual recurring revenue.

Its Athena AI capability automates parts of the advice production process, including file notes, Records of Advice, Statements of Advice, advice presentations, client communications, workflow management and customer profiling.

Netwealth chief executive and managing director Matt Heine said the acquisition would help advisers improve productivity and capacity.

"Our focus is on supporting advisers to grow their businesses and achieve their ambitions. A key part of this is helping advisers increase productivity so they can support more clients and spend more time delivering advice," Heine said.

The acquisition will also allow Netwealth to combine Paradino's workflow technology with its Unify data management platform, which aggregates and synchronises data from multiple sources.

"Together, we believe we can create Australia's leading AI-enabled wealth management and adviser productivity platform," Heine said.

Paradino co-founder Alex Gassner said the company was founded to help advisers overcome the time and cost constraints limiting the number of clients they can support.

"Our vision has always been to enable advisers to serve significantly more clients without compromising the quality or personalisation of advice, and advances in AI are making that increasingly possible," Gassner said.

Netwealth said the acquisition is not expected to have a material impact on near-term earnings, with Paradino forecast to record an EBITDA loss about $3 million in FY27.

The company will report Paradino's financial performance and the additional investment separately from its underlying results.

Both organisations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to bring together Ondo's global tokenisation capabilities and Openmarkets' local market expertise and financial infrastructure.

Specifically, the partnership will assess pathways for Openmarkets to distribute selected Ondo products, while exploring tokenised products and market infrastructure tailored to local investors, potentially including tokenised Australian-listed securities and access to offshore tokenised markets, the parties said.

The MoU comes amid many organisations not yet willing to make the first step to expand into digital finance due to several factors highlighted by BlockchainAPAC during its recent national roadshow in Australia. One of these is the "first-mover costs" that are holding back investment even though technology is no longer the principal barrier.

Meanwhile, the government recently passed the Digital Asset Framework Bill to mandate digital asset exchanges and platforms to carry an AFSL. Openmarkets carries an AFSL and recently expanded its operations into private wealth advisory.

The collaboration is the latest in Openmarkets' plans to add digital assets to its brokerage, clearing, settlement and wealth management services, extending its regulated infrastructure into Australia's emerging tokenised markets. It estimates that the global tokenised asset market will reach $22 trillion (US$16tn) by 2030.

Commenting on the partnership, Openmarkets chief executive Dan Jowett said the combination of both companies' capabilities can lead to the procurement of "compelling" tokenised products.

"We're delighted to collaborate with Ondo, a trusted onchain finance global leader, to bring its world class suite of tokenised products to local investors and explore new tokenised offerings," Jowett said.

"Tokenisation is already transforming Australia's financial services industry and improving the way local participants access, transact and hold assets.

"As a licensed broker and fintech with a deep market footprint, Openmarkets is uniquely positioned as an infrastructure provider and distributor of digital products."

Meanwhile, Ondo Finance managing director of global business development Min Lin said Australia is a "natural" next step in the company's global expansion.

"Openmarkets brings deep local market expertise and established financial infrastructure, creating a compelling pathway to explore how Ondo's institutional-grade tokenised products can reach eligible Australian investors," Lin said.

"Together, we aim to connect one of the Asia Pacific region's most sophisticated capital markets with the global onchain economy."

The Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Northern Trust recently announced a similar partnership to advance digital investment infrastructure across institutional markets.

Both will focus on emerging technologies like digital assets and tokenisation and other initiatives throughout the institutional investment process.

According to a report from BlockchainAPAC, which recently conducted a national roadshow, the constraint stems from "unclear regulatory timelines, first-mover costs and unresolved coordination challenges."

An example of coordination challenges would be the exclusivity of a digital infrastructure from institution to institution, where several banks possess deposit-token capability, but their systems cannot accept one another's tokens.

"Resolving that requires cooperation on shared infrastructure and governance, alongside workable commercial and regulatory settings," BlockchainAPAC said.

The National Dialogue 2026 Synthesis Report gathered insights from banks, superannuation funds, asset managers, custodians, law firms, regulators, digital asset exchanges, and more, noted institutional engagement is growing but commitment "remains the test".

This sentiment is supported by the recent partnership between Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation (CSC) and Northern Trust to advance digital investment infrastructure across institutional markets.

Both parties intend to establish a framework to exchange insights on developments in digital financial markets, identify "new areas" of collaboration and contribute to the advancement of institutional adoption of digital investment solutions.

Project Acacia also indicated a tokenised ecosystem can inject some $24 billion to Australia's economy.

No regulatory clarity

Meanwhile, some are still waiting for regulatory clarity on the sector, as the report pointed to interdependent processes moving on different timetables, such as a legislated platform and custody framework, an incomplete payments and issuance framework and unresolved prudential treatment of stablecoins and related instruments held by banks.

Institutions are unlikely to commit substantial capital while material implementation, capital and liquidity questions remain open-ended, BlockchainAPAC warned.

Despite several ongoing initiatives, including the ongoing support from the government to overhaul the sandbox framework for financial innovation and the passage of the Digital Asset Framework Bill earlier this year, ASIC reiterated perfect regulatory certainty is not possible for digital finance, stating that it's not a "realistic state of affairs" even among other sectors.

Commenting on the issue, BlockchainAPAC chief executive and report author Steve Vallas said Australia needs to move from trialling ideas to implementation.

"Australia's problem is no longer an absence of pilots or evidence that the technology can work. What remains unresolved is who carries the cost of moving first, who governs shared infrastructure and who is accountable for turning experimentation into functioning markets," Vallas said.

"Regulatory clarity remains important, but regulation alone will not create a market. Institutions also need an investable pathway, interoperable settlement and confidence that other participants will move with them."

First-mover disadvantage

Additionally, first-mover costs are holding back investment even though technology is "no longer" the principal barrier.

"But regulatory clarity alone will not produce investment," he said.

"Adoption costs are front-loaded, while many benefits arise only when infrastructure operates at scale and attracts broad participation. Progress requires workable arrangements for investment, risk, governance, interoperability and the distribution of benefits."

He is recommending that the private and public sector work to establish a "workable" Australian dollar settlement layer for tokenised assets, remove "collective action" problems preventing institutions from pioneering and commit to a dated sovereign digital issuance.

The report, however, does not advocate creating new institutions by default, government selection of technologies or wholesale adoption of overseas models.

"The report is not a consensus statement and does not claim to represent every view in the market. Its value lies in recording where positions converged, where they did not and what remains unresolved," Vallas continued.

"Delay and non-participation are not neutral. Markets and standards will continue to develop. The choice is whether Australian institutions help shape them or operate within infrastructure, governance arrangements and commercial models determined elsewhere."

Iress noted its core advice technology platform, Xplan, has supported Capital Haus throughout its evolution from a small independent financial advice practice to a fast-growing, multi-office advice group.

Capital Haus executive chair Brendan Gow said as the advice firm matures, having the right technology partner has been critical to supporting advisers to deliver high-quality advice.

"Iress has been an important part of that journey, providing not only market-leading technology through Xplan, but a strategic partnership that understands our business and supports us as we scale, integrate new businesses and continue to evolve our advice offering," Gow said.

"Having a technology platform that is flexible, reliable and built for growth gives us the confidence to continue expanding while maintaining the quality of service our advisers and clients expect."

Iress is building a structured pathway for technology providers to connect with Xplan, helping ease administrative burden on advisers.

It is also shifting its focus from business simplification to executing an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven product strategy that will help financial advisers slash work processes by nearly 40%.

Iress customer distribution general manager Kerry Ong said the firm looks forward to support Capital Haus's technology foundation needed to scale effectively.

"Capital Haus is a great example of how technology can support a business through every stage of its growth journey," Ong said.

"The Capital Haus team has demonstrated a clear vision for the future, and we're proud that Xplan has evolved alongside the business - providing the flexibility, capability and reliability needed as they expand through acquisition and continue to strengthen their advice offering."

Capital Haus is a private Australian wealth management and financial services firm specialising in funds management and corporate advisory.

The central bank said the project unearthed the potential of a tokenised ecosystem to enhance efficiency, functionality and resilience of the domestic wholesale financial markets, as well as contributing up to $24 billion to the economy once executed.

From the consultation, the RBA is seeking views on how RITS could support the deployment and growth of tokenised asset markets and tokenised private money, while promoting safety, efficiency and financial stability.

It will also address the integration between existing and new forms of money, including the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), as well as help shape the next generation of Australia's settlement services.

The consultation is one of several initiatives identified in Project Acacia that will form the basis of a future program of work aimed at ensuring Australia's money, payments and settlement arrangements remain fit for the future.

"Central bank reserves could support exchanges between different forms of private money, such as traditional and tokenised commercial bank deposits, and stablecoins. This helps different forms of money work seamlessly across the financial system," the RBA said.

"Central bank settlement services will need to evolve to better meet the needs of Australia's financial system into the future."

Additionally, the RBA and Treasury have published a report on retail CBDC, concluding that Australia's retail payment system is serving households and businesses "well", and that there is no clear public interest case for a retail CBDC.

"Together, these publications form part of the RBA's broader work in shaping the future of money, and settlement services and ensuring that Australians remain well served by their retail payments system," the RBA added.

"The RBA continues to work on the wholesale market initiatives identified in Project Acacia. To provide greater visibility into this work, information pertaining to the regulatory, industry and RBA workstreams has now been published online and will be updated periodically."

The consultation welcomes submissions from exchange settlement account holders, financial institutions, technology providers, and other stakeholders interested in the future of RITS and the fast settlement service (FSS). It is open until October 30.

SS&C will provide fund administration and unit registry services for the fund.

Fundamental Investment Management specialises in managing money in the Australian smaller companies sector. The firm was founded by investment director Anton Tagliaferro and senior portfolio manager Simon Conn.

"When we made the decision to start a new firm to help investors capture those returns, we knew we needed to find the right support to help us bring that strategy to market," Tagliaferro said.

"SS&C's administration and registry platform enabled us to launch with institutional-quality infrastructure from day one, allowing us to focus our attention on serving our clients and working with our portfolio companies to deliver returns."

The fund, launched in July, seeks to deliver long-term returns for investors by applying a research-driven value strategy.

"We are thrilled to support Fundamental Investment Management in bringing their inaugural fund to market," SS&C Technologies head of global investor and distribution solutions across Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa Damien Barry said.

"Australia is a key market for SS&C, with roughly 1600 staffers on the ground providing transfer agency and administration to nearly 100 Australian funds. We look forward to working together to optimize and scale Fundamental IM's operations as the firm grows."

SS&C global chair and founder Bill Stone spoke to Financial Standard last year on the firm's intention to become the premier administration provider in Australia.

"We're here, we'll be around. We're not going anywhere, and we like to win," Stone said at the time.

Earlier in the year, Royal London Asset Management extended its mandate with SS&C Technologies to provide its fund administration and unit registry services for its new range of Australian active funds, with around $1 billion in assets under management.

With rapid AI adoption, the Institutes note governance and risk management practices have not kept pace, and the AI Risk Management in the Financial Services Sector guide was designed to close the gap.

"Despite the growing use and importance of AI, many financial services organisations are ill-equipped to manage the scale, complexity, and evolving risk profile of AI systems," Actuaries Institute co-lead author Victor Bajanov said.

"Organisations that choose to do nothing in this space will be exposed to new risks they are not equipped to deal with."

Bajanov added risks associated with previous technologies are largely driven by human behaviour and are well understood, while frontier AI systems don't follow rules and generate responses based on patterns learned from data, which adds additional uncertainty.

"The financial services sector has well-established processes for managing traditional risks, but AI creates a vastly different risk profile, meaning organisations need to go back to first principles when deciding how to manage AI risks and assign responsibility for oversight. Managing AI risk needs to be much more than a tick-box exercise," Bajanov said.

The AI risk management framework provides a four-part framework for AI risk management. The first part builds around governance and how firms can assign accountability for AI risks in the organisation.

"AI creates a distinctive accountability challenge because AI risks are often distributed across multiple functions and are highly context-dependent," the report read.

"This is particularly true for general-purpose and enterprise-wide AI systems, where the same underlying model may be used in different ways in different business contexts, each creating distinct risks."

The report recommends the three lines of defence model, with the first line being business and technology that owns and manages risk in day-to-day operations, the second being risk and compliance that sets risk framework and provides oversight, and third being internal audit that provides independent assurance.

The second framework focuses on classification of AI risk within the organisation, the third focuses on quantification of AI risks and the four on controls for most common AI use cases.

The framework includes a toolkit of resources to explain how it can be applied in financial services organisations with significant AI investments. It can also be adapted by smaller organisations, or those earlier in their AI journey, to suit their scale, complexity, and risk appetite.

"AI in this sector can offer significant benefits for institutions and customers alike, improving efficiency, speed, and quality of service," Actuaries Institute chief executive Elayne Grace said.

"Yet failures in these systems risk significant harm. As experts in data-driven analysis, risk management, and long-term thinking, actuaries are well placed to support financial services organisations with decision making as they embed AI into their operations."

Iress said the refreshed model moves away from open integration to an ecosystem focused on technology providers addressing adviser needs including reducing friction in client onboarding, bringing legacy planning into the advice workflow and improving efficiency through connected data and smarter automation.

"Advisers are looking for solutions that work together seamlessly, reducing administration and enabling them to focus on delivering better client outcomes," Iress general manager of customer distribution Kerry Ong said.

"Our refreshed Xplan integrations ecosystem makes it easier for advisers to connect the tools they rely on, while giving technology providers access to a highly engaged adviser community."

Technology providers integrating with Xplan will get a structured integration pathway, including evaluation environments, API access, setup support, and technical collaboration through the Xplan developer community.

Alongside existing 30 active partners in the ecosystem, new Xplan integrations include Annature and BillWill, supporting key areas of adviser demand including digital client onboarding, identity verification and estate planning.

Annature is a digital signature and identity verification platform that enables advisers to send documents for signing directly from Xplan and automatically archive executed documents back into the client file.

Annature chief executive Corey Cacic said: "Our integration with Iress Xplan means we can now automate processes that were previously manual, while ensuring data stays perfectly synced between both systems at all times."

BillWill is a living register that sits between a client's legal will and their financial plan, capturing the financial, practical and personal detail a family needs when a client loses capacity or dies.

BillWill founder, Colin Jowell, said: "Advisers are increasingly helping clients navigate complex life events, but estate planning information is often fragmented and difficult to manage.

"Because much of that detail already sits in Xplan, the integration connects legacy planning to the advice workflow, letting advisers establish a register in minutes from information the practice already maintains," Jowell said.

Ong said Iress is building an ecosystem of technology partners that deliver meaningful value for advisers and support innovation across the advice landscape.

"By partnering with providers addressing the most important needs of Australian advice practices, we can help create more connected, efficient and scalable technology environments," Ong added.

Iress chief executive Andrew Russell told Financial Standard recently its partnership with Thoughtworks and plans for Xplan are focused on making the platform faster and improving overall performance.

"We've got some tactical improvements coming that advisers will notice, particularly around the look and feel and the modernisation of the client portal. We're also making technical improvements to workflows and bringing AI into those processes to drive productivity gains across the advice workflow," Russell said.

He added advisers' increasing workloads are driving Xplan's process and technology uplift.

"We're trying to improve adviser productivity. If providing advice, including meeting with a client, completing the fact-find and delivering advice, currently takes eight hours, we're going to use technology to try to reduce that to five hours. That's a material productivity improvement," he said.

The acquisition is subject to conditions, including obtaining all required regulatory, shareholder and court approvals.

MUFG said the proposed acquisition aligns with its long-term vision to offer best-in-class solutions in pension and superannuation globally, while further strengthening the overall capabilities of its MUFG Retirement Solutions business division in Australia, including adding to its technology suite.

"The proposed acquisition of GROW Inc reflects the continued evolution of the superannuation industry and the changing needs of funds for flexible administration and technology solutions. As the industry continues to evolve, funds are increasingly seeking more tailored approaches to technology, administration and member experience," MUFG Pension & Market Services chief executive and managing director Vivek Bhatia said.

"The proposed acquisition of GROW Inc would complement our existing capabilities and technology platforms. Together with our existing operational depth, governance strength and deep administration expertise, this would expand the range and flexibility that we can offer the market over time."

Bhatia added he believes the acquisition will further strengthen MUFG's long-term resilience, investment capability and commitment to the administration ecosystem of Australian superannuation members.

MUFG Retirement Solutions ANZ chief executive Frank Lombardo said the super sector is increasingly looking to partners who can support a diverse range of strategies, products and member experiences, while continuing to meet rising expectations around service, data, governance and operational performance.

"The proposed acquisition of GROW Inc to our organisation would enable us to support clients with greater flexibility across a wider range of operating models," Lombardo said.

"Most importantly, it would strengthen our ability to bring to market the solutions and services our clients will need in the years ahead, to support the growing needs and expectations of their members."

GROW Inc chief executive John Banfield added:"GROW was founded with a vision to modernise superannuation administration through technology and innovation. The proposed transaction provides GROW with the opportunity to continue that mission as part of an organisation with strong operational capability, client relationships and a long-term commitment to the superannuation sector."

The proposed transaction remains subject to shareholder, court and various regulatory approvals, as well as customary completion conditions.

Both organisations remain focused on supporting their clients, partners and employees, and will continue to operate on a business-as-usual basis while the approval process progresses.

HESTA, which switched its administration services to GROW Inc in June 2025, said it was pleased to support the proposed acquisition.

"While the acquisition remains subject to conditions, including regulatory, shareholder and court approvals, as an early adopter of GROW's innovative technology, our established relationship with both organisations positions us well to continue to optimise the platform," a HESTA spokesperson said.

"GROW is an external service provider to HESTA and the existing platform remains in place. The proposed change of ownership does not affect members' super, with their savings remaining invested by HESTA as usual. We do not expect an impact to our contact centre or core processes, with contributions and payments processed as normal.​

"We continue to look at ways to deliver better value and service to members. From 30 September 2026, members will benefit from lower administration fees on income stream accounts, and this follows a reduction in both insurance and investment fees for members in the past 12 months."

The regulators' warning follows nine industry roundtables held across June and July, involving more than 600 attendees from more than 380 entities across the financial system.

The discussions, supported by the Australian Signals Directorate and involving the Reserve Bank of Australia, Treasury and the ACCC, found frontier AI is accelerating existing cyber, technology and operational risks while creating new risks from increasingly autonomous systems.

ASIC commissioner Simone Constant said the urgency of the threats required firms to ensure their resilience measures had been tested before and incident occurrs.

"Threat actors are exploiting frontier AI models to identify and exploit vulnerabilities that previously may have taken a team of professional's months to find," Constant said.

"Boards and executives must move beyond awareness and ensure their organisations have well-tested response plans and understand where they are vulnerable, so they can respond effectively under pressure."

The regulators highlighted cyber fundamentals including timely patching, strong identity and access controls, attack surface reduction, backup integrity and tested recovery arrangements as key areas of focus.

Boards and executives were also urged to establish risk appetite, escalation authority, recovery priorities and communication strategies before a crisis, given frontiers AI could compress incident response timeframes.

Defensive AI is emerging as a potential tool for threat intelligence, vulnerability detection, code review and incident response, although participants noted governed and scalable capability remains limited and should not relace fundamental cyber controls.

APRA deputy chair Therese McCarthy Hockey said the roundtables demonstrated the value of information sharing across an interconnected financial system.

"A particularly encouraging theme that stood out was the willingness of more advanced entities to share practical insights, lessons and approaches with peers and less mature entities." McCarthy Hockey said.

"This is precisely the type of 'Team Australia' mindset that is needed to shore up resilience across our highly interconnected financial system."

The regulators also warned shared reliance on cloud, software, telecommunications, payments infrastructure and AI providers could amplify disruptions across the sector, making dependency mapping, supplier assurance and industry wide threat intelligence increasingly important.

ASIC and APRA said preparedness would remain a heightened regulatory focus as entities move from understanding frontier AI risks to demonstrating practical resilience.

The MoU is focused on emerging technologies including tokenisation, digital assets, and enhanced digital cash capabilities, while exploring opportunities to improve transparency, operational efficiency, and connectivity throughout the institutional investment processes.

The organisations also intend to establish a framework to exchange insights on developments in digital financial markets, identify "new areas" of collaboration and contribute to the advancement of institutional adoption of digital investment solutions.

The partnership builds on the previous collaboration of both organisations in Project Acacia, where the two will also explore regulated settlement assets and other digital payment mechanisms, including liquidity management, settlement efficiency, and interoperability between traditional finance and emerging digital asset ecosystems, they said.

CSC chief of investment services Paul Abraham said the fund is eager to enhance its understanding of the innovative sector.

"As long-term stewards of retirement outcomes for our members, CSC continues to explore innovations that have the potential to enhance efficiency, transparency, and resilience across investment operation," Abraham said.

"This collaboration with Northern Trust provides an opportunity to deepen our understanding of emerging technologies and their practical applications within institutional investment markets."

Northern Trust group head of strategic partnerships, digital assets and financial markets Justin Chapman said: "The evolution of digital assets, tokenisation and digital money presents significant opportunities to modernise investment infrastructure and create more connected financial ecosystems."

"We are pleased to extend our collaboration with CSC as we explore how these innovations can support the future of institutional investing."

It comes as AMP Super ventured into Bitcoin in recent years, becoming the first super fund to invest in digital assets, like cryptocurrencies.

Although cryptocurrency is not yet classified as a financial product, other digital assets like stablecoins, wrapped tokens, tokenised securities and digital asset wallets were labelled as financial products by ASIC last year.

Further, to pledge more confidence on the sector, the government passed the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Bill 2025 soon after, requiring digital asset platforms and tokenised custody platforms to acquire Australian financial services licence (AFSL) and comply with consumer protection obligations.

The move was welcomed by the industry.

However, according to Swyftx, Australians remain reluctant to invest in digital assets with their super, noting that only a quarter (25%) want their fund to invest in crypto, compared to over half (56%) that do not.

The entities have secured new power capacity and $165 million in GPU financing.

Centuria, which holds a 50% interest in ResetData, said the developments build on initiatives outlined during its June 2026 equity raising and are intended to support the next stage of business.

ResetData has signed a Master Services Agreement with CDC Data Centres for initial 7MW allocation, alongside a letter of intent supporting an increase to 10MW.

The agreement provides a pathway to expand deployment and revenue as customer demand converts into contracted capacity, with revenue commencement remaining on track for the second half of FY27.

The group has also secure 72MW of dedicated power generation units for delivery in 2028, with multi-site optionality. Centuria said the infrastructure could fast-track additional power capacity and bring forward deployment timelines by around two years.

The companies have also executed documentation with Macquire Bank for $165 million in senior bridge GPU financing facility.

The facility will support staged Nvidia GPU procurement and deployment across Centuria owned and third-party facilities, complementing ResetData's existing financing arrangement with Dell Financial Services.

Centuria said customer demand continues to exceed ResetData's near-term AI compute capacity with multiple opportunities progressing through commercial, technical and contracting discussions.

A strategic memorandum of understanding has also been executed with an investment-grade corporation to potentially procure about 2MW of capacity through a staged deployment in Centuria-owned data centres facilities.

ResetData has ordered the remaining GPUs required for the second stage of its AI Factory (AI-F1) project, supporting completion of the facility's capacity buildout.

Centuria has said its AI-F1 stage 2 deployments is targeted at 1.1MW, while existing Centuria facility has a target deployment of approximately 2.5MW. Both are targeting revenue commencement in the second half of the FY27.

Centuria has reaffirmed its FY26 guidance and will provide a broader group update when it reports its annual results on 27 August 2026.

Under the new partnership, currency technology provider Integral offers Zerocap a single, out-of-the-box point of connectivity to a broad network of liquidity providers across both digital assets and fiat currency markets, it said

The integration of Integral's pricing engine will also offer "more accurate, real-time" cross-currency pricings. With configurability as a key requirement, as both have worked closely to create customised liquidity pools, ensuring broad connectivity, the investment platform said.

Furthermore, Zerocap receives enhanced access to the liquidity for fiat currency conversion, which is valuable for the continued rise in digital asset trading across the Asia Pacific region.

The flexibility of the platform also eased integration with other back-office providers, such as Elysium, supporting all Zerocap's operational processes, Zerocap said.

As a result, Zerocap can help clients manage risk exposure and navigate digital asset volatility with greater confidence and precision with a systematic risk management tool that fully automates risk controls essential for institutional workflows.

Commenting, Zerocap chief investment officer Jon de Wet said the integration places the platform in good stead amid the heightened demand for institutional digital assets.

"Integral Digital gives us unified access to deep digital asset and fiat liquidity, real-time cross-currency pricing and automated risk controls in a single platform, so we can price faster, execute with greater accuracy and keep scaling our institutional franchise without compromising on controls," de Wet said.

Meanwhile, Integral chief executive Harpal Sandhu added: "Zerocap's decision to adopt Integral Digital highlights the growing demand for proven, agile trading technology among institutions exploring the huge opportunity in crypto markets."

"Built on deep expertise across both traditional and cryptocurrencies, we understand the needs of firms like Zerocap that require access to dynamic, sophisticated trading functionalities in a centralised and user-friendly workflow.

"We're proud to support Zerocap in enabling their clients to seamlessly access liquidity and manage risk with confidence, helping them make the most of opportunities within digital asset markets."

Zerocap has been serving institutions and sophisticated investors since 2017 and reccevied backing from the Victor Smorgon Group in 2021. The firm also participated in Project Acacia, which has completed its research phase earlier this year.

The new financing platform will turn Nvidia compute and full-stack AI infrastructure into an investment asset class to enable the AI infrastructure buildout across Nvidia's ecosystem, including leading frontier AI labs, enterprises and AI clouds, the company said.

Under these strategic partnerships, Nvidia will work with the who's who of private equity investors to create dedicated pools of capital at significant scale with attractive rates for Nvidia customers.

It comes as demand for AI infrastructure continues to rise across countries, governments, enterprises and startups looking to drive innovation, economic growth and societal benefits.

"Nvidia has reached an important milestone. We began by building chips; today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories," Nvidia chief executive and founder Jensen Huang said.

"In AI, compute is revenue. Nvidia compute is uniquely suited for this role. It is broadly adopted, flexible across models and workloads, fungible and transferable across customers and operators, and continuously improved through CUDA software - extending its useful life and improving its economics over time. It is supported by a deep global ecosystem of developers, customers and offtakers.

"That is why we are bringing the world's leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure. These financing platforms will help customers access scarce compute at scale and build the AI factories that will power every industry and country in the age of AI."

Apollo president Jum Zelter added: "Modern compute has emerged as a scarce, mission-critical asset class with compelling investment characteristics that is positioned to drive significant long-term economic growth and productivity gains."

"The combination of Nvidia's proprietary technology ecosystem and Apollo's flexible, long-term capital base provides a strong foundation to support the next stage of the AI buildout as part of the broader Global Industrial Renaissance."

Meanwhile, BlackRock chair and chief executive Larry Fink said the investment opportunity in AI continues grow.

"The AI buildout will require unprecedented investment and a skilled workforce to turn that investment into the infrastructure that will help power future growth," Fink said.

"This partnership deepens our relationship with Nvidia, including through the AI infrastructure partnership, and brings together Nvidia's leadership in accelerated computing with BlackRock's ability to connect long-term capital to essential infrastructure.

"Together, we can help deliver the compute capacity that companies need to grow and create more jobs, supporting the continued growth of the US and global economies, while creating attractive, long-term investment opportunities for our clients."

Blackstone chief operating officer and president Jon Gray shared the same sentiment.

"Nvidia has created extraordinary demand for its compute through an intense focus on customer value and versatile technology," Gray said.

"We continue to be enormous investors globally across the Nvidia ecosystem, and this announcement further underscores our confidence in their platform and the future of AI infrastructure."

The partnerships remain subject to execution of the final agreements.

The collaboration reflects a growing demand for fintechs and digital asset businesses for secured infrastructure that enables further development of regulated financial products while reducing operational complexity.

Fireblocks head of Asia Pacific Amy Zhang said more businesses are seeking institutional-grade technology to navigate the next phase of innovation.

"As digital assets become increasingly embedded in financial services, it is clear that institutional-grade infrastructure is the foundation for innovation," Zhang said.

"We're proud to support Block Earner as it brings Australia's first crypto-backed lending platform to market and demonstrates that security isn't just a nice-to-have, but enables businesses to scale with confidence, from launching new products to expanding into new jurisdictions."

The new platform allows customers to borrow up to $5 million within 24 hours of approval using cryptocurrency as security, with no lock-in contracts. These include up to 50% loan-to-value ratio (LVR) of Bitcoin or Ethereum.

Should a loan go into default, borrowers have 30 days to repay the debt to "restore the health of their loan, and if no action was taken, Block Earner may automatically sell a portion of the borrower's crypto security.

"As Block Earner looks to take its lending model beyond Australia, Fireblocks' global network and multi-jurisdiction compliance infrastructure gives the company a pathway to scale without having to rebuild custody and security from the ground up in each new market, a common barrier for Australian fintechs expanding overseas," Block Earner said.

The launch also builds on the fintech's experience in bank-led digital money research initiatives, including Project Acacia, and emphasises the growing demand among fintechs and digital asset businesses for secured infrastructure for developments of regulated financial products, it said.

Block Earner growth and partnerships manager Lauren Minicozzi said the partnership has pledged confidence for its customers.

"Security is fundamental when you're holding customer assets as collateral," Minicozzi said.

"Fireblocks gave us the confidence to launch our lending product, knowing our customers' digital assets would be protected by institutional-grade infrastructure. That allowed us to focus on building innovative financial products instead of custody technology."

The partnership integrates AUSIEX's execution, clearing and settlement capabilities into the platform, allowing advisers to connect portfolio construction, implementation and compliance through a single workflow.

Padua chief executive and managing director Matthew Esler said advice firms were increasingly seeking technology that linked every stage of the advice process as they look to scale their business.

"The Padua Portal is an advice ecosystem that provides the connective tissue for the next phase of advice delivery in Australia," Esler said.

"We want to enable advisers to deliver more good advice to more clients, by giving them the infrastructure to do it efficiently and at scale."

The expanded portal supports digital client engagement, advice generation, implantation, compliance monitoring and API integration with wealth platforms, superannuation funds, insurers and broking providers. It also includes artificial intelligence capabilities designed to automate advice documentation, quality assurance and regulatory file reviews.

Esler said the platform was designed to address what he described as the "last mile of advice" by bridging the gap between advice production and implementation.

"In financial advice, the last mile is about bridging the gap between advice and implementation," Esler said.

"The Portal helps complete the last mile by connecting members and clients with the broader advice process."

Padua expects advice generated through the ecosystem to increase to $27 billion in active money recommendations during FY27, up from $17 billion in FY26.

AUSIEX chief executive Patrick Salis said embedding its investment infrastructure directly into adviser workflows reflected the company's broader evolution beyond trade execution.

"AUSIEX has spent 30 years building the execution, clearing and settlement infrastructure that Australian markets depend on," Salis said.

"The Padua Advice Portal brings that capability directly inside the adviser workflow, where portfolio construction decisions are made."

Padua said it is finalising additional strategic partnerships and experts to announce further integrations in the coming months.

According to the study, which included responses from some 178 fund managers across Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the US and Europe, 63% increased AI spending by more than 50% in the past 12 months and not a single firm reported a budget decrease.

One in four (25%) believes their organisation is still not investing enough in AI, while a striking 66% noted their firms have over-invested in the innovation.

Meanwhile, AI has already been embedded in fund managers' operations, investment decisions and risk management, as 43% now use AI for 25-49% of their investment decision-making, while 10% rely on it for "the majority" of their investment calls.

Close to two in five (38%) apply AI to 25-49% of their risk processes, and 8% use it for most risk assessments. Across operations, 34% integrate AI into 25-49% of operational decisions; 6% use AI for over half of their operational workflows, the study found.

Contrary to the narrative of an industry playing catch-up, the research reveals that AI adoption in asset management is more mature than commonly assumed.

Clearwater Analytics said the findings highlighted the industry is not at the beginning of its AI journey - it is in the middle of it, and the challenge now is to scale it effectively. This is evident with many already integrating AI four to five years ago (56%), and a further 34% started their journey two to three years back.

Only 9% have begun AI integration within the past year.

"Together, these findings expose a fault line running through the industry: for all the conviction that AI is essential, there is no consensus on what the right level of commitment looks like in practice - and for an industry where capital allocation decisions carry significant weight, that lack of consensus carries real risk," Clearwater Analytics said.

And the debate now is to determine the right level of investments moving forward, as 13% report AI investment increased by over 100% in the past 12 months and 50% saw expenditure rise between 50% and 99%, with only 4% looking to hold budgets steady.

Commenting, Clearwater Analytics chief technology officer Souvik Das said firms that solve the challenge to institutionalise AI will be the ones that pull ahead.

"What our research reveals is an industry wrestling with how to get AI right. Increasing the budget is the easy part. The harder challenge is institutionalising AI in a way that drives genuine alpha and operational excellence, rather than simply adding cost and complexity," Das said.

"When the infrastructure is right, AI doesn't just work, it compounds. It identifies data anomalies in real-time, reduces the manual burden on risk and operations teams, and frees people to focus on the high-value strategic work that actually moves the needle."

With a completion date expected later this year, subject to customary conditions and approvals, Next Capital will pocket five enterprise-grade data centres across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, currently serving more than 80 hyperscale, enterprise, government and financial services customers.

Fujitsu will continue to operate the business as usual through to completion, with the transition managed jointly by Fujitsu and Next Capital over the coming months, with some 58 data centre team members transitioning to the independent platform.

Next Capital said a new name and identity will be introduced for the platform in due course, as the deal follows the divestment of iseek, a leasehold data centre business, which has grown its portfolio from three to five data centres during Next Capital's ownership before being sold to Amber Infrastructure in 2021.

Commenting, Next Capital partner and chair James Murphy praised the business for its excellent track record and is excited to bring it forward.

"We are bringing a highly capable commercial leadership team to complement an already strong operations group, creating a platform with the right expertise to support customers and drive its next phase of growth," Murphy said.

"Our priorities are a seamless transition for customers, support for our people, and investment in the platform for the long term."

Meanwhile, Fujitsu chief executive in Oceania Peter Grassi said the transaction reflects the success story through its investments.

"This transaction enables us to focus our investment on what we do best: helping customers modernise critical systems, improve cyber resilience and accelerate digital transformation," he said.

"It also allows us to invest more deeply in emerging technologies such as sovereign AI, high-performance computing and quantum computing. This strengthens our ability to support customers in Australia through their next phase of growth and transformation."

The business will be debt-free after completion, backed by institutional capital, with significant capital available to fund growth, while Fujitsu will remain as a customer, Next Capital said.

Last year, Insignia Financial struck a deal with SS&C to outsource about 1300 staff who worked in its master trust business to the fund administrator as part of its cost-cutting drive. Insignia's staff working in administration, technology and digital teams officially moved to SS&C in July 2025.

While SS&C began the major restructure to integrate the workforces of the two businesses, Finance Sector Union (FSU) had secured a 12-month firing freeze of the roles.

FSU said, however, as soon as the moratorium on the job losses lifted, SS&C has made a portion of the staff redundant. The union noted all the jobs in the initial round of redundancies will be performed at SS&C Technologies' Thai and Indian operations.

"The remaining Australian staff will undergo a selection process to determine who stays and who will be in line for future redundancies," FSU said.

Insignia Financial's Shadforth and Bridges financial advice business will also axe 59 staff with their jobs also going to the Philippines.

FSU has lodged a dispute with SS&C and Insignia Financial and said it will escalate the matter to the Fair Work Commission if needed.

"Offshoring is a cancer that continues to spread across the entire Australian finance sector," FSU national president Wendy Streets said.

"It puzzling to think that SS&C Technologies bought half off Insignia Financial last year to get a toehold on Australian finance and now, less than a year later, they are abandoning this country in favour of Asian countries known for their poor pay and conditions."

Streets added the FSU will not relent until the companies are held to account for treating Australian workers like "pawns in a fruitless global chess game".

The Australian wealth reporting platform said the new capability, which is available immediately to HeirWealth Atlas users on an opt-in basis, is believed to be the first of its kind among Australian wealth reporting platforms.

The MCP sever connects HeirWealth's consolidated data layer directly AI assistants using the open Model Context Protocol standard, enabling advisers to ask plain language questions about client portfolios rather than manually extracting and reconciling data across multiple systems.

HeirWealth chief executive Ray Tubman said the launch addressed one of the profession's biggest operation pain points.

"Advisers have told us for years that the hardest part of their week isn't the advice; it's assembling the picture they need to give it," Tubman said.

"Our data layer already solved the consolidation problem. The MCP server takes the next step: it lets an adviser simply ask a question and get an answer drawn straight from their own client data, inside the AI tools they're already using.

"It removes hours of manual work without asking anyone to change how they work, and it does so within the permissions the firm already controls."

The platform is designed to help advisers serving high-net-worth and multi-generational families who often spend significant time consolidating information across entities, trusts and investment platforms before providing advice.

Using the MCP server, advisers can ask questions such as a family's total property exposure across all entities or generate portfolio summaries, investment insights and client-ready reports from live data.

HeirWealth said calculations continue to be performed by its own deterministic reporting engine rather than the AI model itself, ensuring figures remain consistent, repeatable and auditable.

The technology also aims to improve adviser productivity by generating meeting preparation materials, portfolio summaries and first-draft client communications directly from consolidated client data.

The company said firms retain full control over access through existing HeirWealth permission settings and consent models, with client data remaining within the platform and not being used to train third-party AI models.

The planned capabilities are designed to support future atomic settlement, SS&C said, while reducing settlement risk, improving operational efficiency and simplifying cross-border investment transactions as digital markets continue to evolve.

The announcement also builds on the launch of SS&C's live tokenised fund issuance and distribution capabilities earlier this year following the acquisition of Calastone a year prior.

SS&C said it already enables asset managers to bring tokenised versions of traditional investment funds to market through the infrastructure, and together with SS&C's existing tokenised fund issuance and distribution capabilities, the enhancements create a pathway to further extend the practical application of tokenised investment products.

Further details regarding product availability and implementation timelines will be available in due course, SS&C said.

Commenting, SS&C general manager of global investor and distribution solutions Nick Wright said tokenised investments are slowly emerging as one of the main investment vehicles for investors.

"Tokenised funds are becoming another mainstream investment structure alongside mutual funds and ETFs. As asset managers begin supporting these products in production, they need infrastructure that evolves with them," Wright said.

"The announcement represents another step in helping clients make that transition, building on our live tokenised fund issuance and distribution capabilities with the digital cash settlement infrastructure needed to support the next stage of market adoption.

"Following the acquisition of Calastone, we have continued to invest in expanding these capabilities, helping clients adopt digital investments with confidence while leveraging the scale, resilience and connectivity they already rely on."

The sentiment echoes soundly domestically, reflected by the latest findings from Project Acacia, highlighting tokenisation can inject some $24 billion to Australia's economy.

Earlier this year, the government swiftly passed the Digital Assets Framework Bill, requiring digital assets providers to obtain an Australian financial service licence (AFSL).

Swyftx was the latest to join the lineup, which allowed the exchange to handle retail derivatives, basic deposit products and NCP facility authorisations. Coinbase and OKX currently hold a similar AFSL.

Further, ASIC has announced a three-month extension for those that are not yet compliant with the scheme, now expiring on September 30.

Swyftx interim co-chief executive Andrea Yuen said: "It's an enormous responsibility to be a regulated financial service and we'll continue to work non-stop to offer products that improve the lives of everyone who uses Swyftx."

"Looking ahead, we want to use a well-regulated Australian market as a base to expand our presence overseas and become the Web3 provider of choice for both domestic retail and business clients."

The business acquired New Zealand's digital currency brokerage Easy Crypto and a boutique crypto brokerage and asset manager Caleb & Brown last year.

EQT said the investment backs the Melbourne-based business to accelerate product innovation, artificial intelligence capabilities and international expansion.

The acquisition, through the BPEA EQT Mid-Market Growth Partnership, will see EQT partner with Orikan's management team as the company enters its next phase of growth. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Founded in Melbourne, Orikan provides integrated parking, enforcement and compliance technology, combining software, hardware, payments and data services for customers including local governments, universities, airports, hospitals and stadiums across Australia, New Zealand and North America.

The transaction follows nearly four years of ownership by Five V Capital, which acquired the business in 2022 and has since supported its cloud transformation, expansion into New Zealand and the United States, and investment in complementary technology products. The sale remains subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to complete by the end of 2026.

EQT co-head of private capital Asia and head of the Mid-Market Growth strategy Nicholas Macksey said Orikan aligned closely with the firm's investment focus.

"Orikan is a business we have followed closely and one that fits well with EQT's Asia mid-market strategy, with a clear opportunity for EQT to support its next stage of growth," Macksey said.

"We see significant potential to help the Company continue investing in innovation, strengthen its customer offering and expand into adjacent markets."

EQT said it plans to support further investment in Orikan's product development, service delivery, customer operations and data and AI capabilities while pursuing opportunities in adjacent customer segments and overseas markets.

Orkan chief executive Peter Neale welcomed the partnership, saying EQT's experience scaling technology businesses would help accelerate the company's long-term strategy.

"We are thrilled to partner with EQT as we enter the next stage of Orikan's growth. EQT shares our long-term vision and brings deep experience in scaling high-growth, technology-enabled businesses," Neale said.

"Together, we will continue investing in our people, platform and service capabilities, while continuing to provide the high level of service our customers rely on every day. It is an exciting day for our people and our customers."

The investment forms part of EQTs expanding Asia mid-market strategy, which has already backed Australian property management software provider PropertyMe and Japanese company MAMEZO. The strategy's inaugural fund closed in 2024 with US$1.6 billion in commitments, more than double its original fundraising target.

ICS will implement ATHENA to consolidate Impax Asset Management's core investment data domains into a centralised, auditable hub, to unify positions, transactions, sustainability data, pricing, and reference data across Impax's data provider landscape.

The implementation will enable Impax to automate data management across custodians, OMS, and market data providers, while further reducing the operational risk to support scalable growth across its investments with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) on insights that "were previously out of reach".

Impax will also benefit from enhanced monitoring of data licence cost and governance controls from the mandate.

The move reflects a deliberate investment in infrastructure that ensures data quality, governance, and analytical capability scale with the firm's ambitions, ICS said.

Beyond the core data platform, Impax will gain access to ATHENA MCP, which enables investment and operations teams to query their live, governed data in plain language, with every interaction logged, traceable, and read-only, it explained.

Commenting, Impax Asset Management global chief operating officer Darren Johnson said the platform will continue to steer growth for the company moving forward.

"As we continue to grow and deepen our offering, having a modern, governed data platform is essential - both to the quality of our investment process and to the service we deliver to clients. ATHENA gives us the infrastructure to further strengthen our data capabilities, automate controls, and deliver the transparent, well-governed analytics our teams and clients expect," Johnson said.

"Critically, it also gives us a foundation to begin using AI more meaningfully - in a way that is governed, auditable, and genuinely connected to our real data. We look forward to building a long-term partnership with ICS."

Meanwhile, ICS chief commercial officer Christian Eriksen added: "We are delighted to welcome Impax Asset Management to the ICS client community."

"Impax is exactly the kind of firm ATHENA is designed for - operationally sophisticated, data-intensive, and operating at the intersection of investment excellence and sustainability leadership. The data unification work will further strengthen an already capable operation.

"But what excites us equally is what comes next: Impax will have a governed data foundation that their AI tools can trust more fully. That is the difference between AI as a demonstration and AI as a capability."

Impax joins a growing community of investment managers across the UK and globally accessing ATHENA, including local institutional investors like Active Super before the merger with Vision Super that took place in March 2025.

Currently, borrowers can access the international debt market, but access remains challenging due to the differences in jurisdictions and regulation.

However, the emergence of stablecoins is slowly broadening that option for Australians.

Explaining, CloudTech Group chief financial officer and executive director Mandy Jiang said stablecoins are widening the world's ability to access credit in ways that were not possible before.

Stablecoins provide access to global lending pools without the existing constraints and delays, she said, and once conditions are met, the 'smart contract' carries out its terms automatically without the need of a bank, lawyer or any third party.

"In a lending context, that means collateral can be posted, verified, and released entirely on-chain. This removes a great deal of the opacity that has long disadvantaged smaller borrowers in international debt markets, by making lending transparent on the blockchain - via the smart contract," she said.

"However, it's important to note that this is not about replacing banks, it's about extending the reach of financial services to people and businesses that have not previously had a seat at the table.

"Having a stablecoin infrastructure in place will pave the way for simplified debt opportunities for local borrowers, giving them access to funding that had previously not been available to them."

Stablecoin AUDD head of product and operations Jason Beale agrees with Jiang, noting the early stages of adoption, particularly in cross-border payments among institutional users, is now prominent but mainstream uptake will be evolutionary rather than overnight.

"By providing a trusted digital representation of fiat currency, they remove structural barriers that have historically made capital movement between jurisdictions slow and difficult to access," Beale said.

"In practice, this supports the growth of tokenised private credit and digital financing models, where borrowers are no longer limited to local pools of capital. Instead, they can access a broader, global investor base, with funding and repayments settled instantly via stablecoins, and fewer intermediaries passing costs down the value chain.

"Importantly, stablecoins like AUDD are not providing the lending themselves, they act as the payment, settlement and liquidity rail underpinning these transactions. That distinction matters, because it is what allows digital markets to scale while maintaining clear roles across the ecosystem."

Beale added the innovation will provide an exciting opportunity for investors to gain greater access to diversified opportunities, with improved transparency.

"What underpins this transition is the role of stablecoins as the settlement layer," he said.

"Stablecoins like AUDD are already operating within this emerging architecture, and as that becomes more widely adopted and better integrated with regulated frameworks, we move closer to a financial system where capital can flow more freely, without compromising trust or oversight."

Meanwhile, Jiang is also observing more private credit products being offered in a tokenised form to make investment more accessible and seamless through the fractionalised structure.

She added the increased regulation scrutiny on the sector will provide better confidence in consumers, while the draft legislation to allow advisers, institutions, and retail investors to participate will further pledge that confidence.

"That clarity tends to accelerate adoption more than any technological breakthrough," she said.

The business suffered a cyber incident that involved an unauthorised third-party accessing part of its system via an external service provider on 27 April 2026. It later confirmed the third party was disguised as 'Generation Life' which claimed to have accessed some of its data in a separate update on 17 May 2026.

Following a detailed investigation and data review, Generation Life is now "notifying individuals whose personal information has been confirmed as impacted."

It did not confirm the number of individuals affected.

"This relates to a limited number of individuals. To protect the privacy of those individuals, and because we are communicating directly with them regarding their particular circumstances, Generation Life will not be providing further public detail on the number of people affected or the nature of the personal information involved," Generation Life told Financial Standard.

"Since the incident was first identified, we have been working closely with specialist cybersecurity and forensic experts to assist with the investigation and response."

The update confirmed there has been no access to the core systems responsible for investment activities or any unauthorised transactions. Client investments and funds have not been impacted, and its service continued to operate per normal.

The company has since increased its transaction monitoring and controls as a precautionary measure.

Generation Life has also notified relevant government authorities and regulators, including the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), and the National Office of Cyber Security (NOCS).

Generation Development Group, the parent company of Generation Life, confirmed in April other subsidiaries Evidentia Group and Lonsec Research & Ratings were not affected.

Last month, the annuity provider named Norlena Brouwer as its chief risk officer. She spent over a year as head of business risk and compliance for enablement, transformation and performance at Aware Super.

The app is Australia's first licensed advice platform on mobile and operates under Otivo's Australian financial services licence (AFSL). It draws on the seven advice modules already available on its web version, Otivo said, delivering personalised advice on superannuation, retirement, mortgages, debt, ETF investing and personal insurance through a plain-language chat interface.

Further, recommendations are subject to all regulatory compliance that apply to human advisers, targeting to close the advice gap.

Otivo said the launch comes as an alternative advice source for those seeking advice as general-purpose AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are restricted from providing financial advice.

"Two hundred million people a month are asking ChatGPT financial questions and OpenAI has admitted it can't give them advice. That's the gap Otivo closes," Otivo chief information officer Nathan Isterling said.

"AI without licensing gives you speed without accountability. A licensed platform without AI gives you accountability without scale. Otivo delivers both."

The app is live on iOS, with Android to follow, and is free to every Australian until 30 June 2026. Existing subscribers can sign in with their current credentials.

In February, Otivo completed its partnership with Colonial First State across its FirstChoice Employer and FirstChoice Wholesale Super and Pension products, as the super fund made the switch to offering the capability in house with the launch of Super Advice.

The funds include Royal London Global Equity Diversified Fund, Royal London Global Equity Enhanced Fund, Royal London Global Equity Select Fund and Royal London Short Duration Global High Yield Bond Fund.

SS&C will provide its full suite of fund administration services to the funds, including accounting, unit pricing, transfer agency, valuation and tax/financial reporting.

Equity Trustees will serve as the Responsible Entity for RLAM's new funds.

"We are thrilled to extend our partnership with SS&C to encompass our new range of Australian funds. We've been partnering with SS&C for the last three years in the UK with positive results," Royal London Asset Management chief client officer Ed Venner said.

"The firm's global scale and their growing presence in the Australian market made SS&C a natural choice to service our new Australian funds. SS&C's expertise has streamlined the unit trust launch process for our team, allowing us to focus on building direct relationships with Australian investors and advisers."

"We are pleased to further our long-term relationship with Royal London Asset Management as they continue developing their distribution model in the growing Australian market," SS&C Global Investor & Distribution Solutions global head Nick Wright said.

"SS&C has invested significant time and resources in expanding our local team and offerings to best serve fund managers in the region. We are honoured RLAM has entrusted us with supporting their new range of Australian funds and look forward to continuing to work with their team."

RLAM manages £199 billion (412bn) on behalf of clients and is part of Royal London, the UK's largest mutual life, pensions and investment company.

Addressing the Salesforce Financial Services Summit, Salesforce platform, security and AI specialist James Jurd said increasing cyber threats require better accountability on governance.

It comes as the regulatory landscape is rapidly evolving and requires businesses to keep themselves on track, he said.

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has recently ramped up its supervision on risk management practices for regulated entities, which noted the increasingly sophisticated cyber threats enabled by AI models.

Jurd echoed the regulator's concern, stating that 90% of organisations have reported at least one data breach in the past year.

"There are attacks on critical infrastructure that we need to be aware of... and the fact that 89% of attacks last year were by AI-enabled models," Jurd said.

"It's this constant accumulation of complexity differences [that businesses need to be aware of], and there's obviously greater accountability on boards and directors to make sure that you've got proactive risk governance in place."

He also noted companies of all sizes bear the same risks.

Meanwhile, Julius Anuari, senior administrator from Eightcap - a fintech platform for online trading - also expressed the importance for companies to implement a sound security foundation.

He said as Eightcap continues to scale, the business was outgrowing its legacy customer relationship management (CRM) system, which creates compliance risks in many ways.

"We have many tools that the team had to use across sales and support, not necessarily having a unified usability for customers; they're always coming from an incomplete picture...," Anuari said.

"... and dealing with compliance and onboarding were the same thing, so this was really hurting us."

Further, Anuari emphasised the importance to remain engaged when formulating a security framework, claiming a strategy is just a piece of paper that "nobody reads if you don't own it."

"We [need to] take [the governance aspect] up ourselves, especially with our team and stakeholders... You then realise that you are seeing data as a 'mini warehouse'. The more updates and cleaning of the app, the better it is for everybody," he said.

The Foundation Advisers Wrap will allow advisers to retain access to the platform while client assets remain in place, and denied access will only occur on a 'for cause' basis, including regulatory or disciplinary action.

All restrictions will apply only to the individual adviser, not the entire dealer group.

AIOFP chief executive Peter Johnston said the initiative is designed to restore confidence and protect adviser independence.

"Independent advisers are running small businesses. The ability for a platform to restrict access without cause creates a real and immediate risk to those businesses," Johnston said.

"Foundation is about putting that risk back under control - ensuring advisers retain access to the platform while their clients' assets remain in place."

AIOFP has also established Foundation Platform Services (FPS) to drive the rollout of the platform, which is positioned to generate revenue for the association. The revenue will be re-invested to enhance services, including the establishment of an adviser defence fund, AIOFP said.

FPS will be majority owned by AIOFP, with former director of Elevate Investment Managers Arthur Naoumidis appointed as chief executive.

Naoumidis said the model addresses a structural imbalance in the platform market.

"This is about resetting expectations. Advisers should not lose access to critical infrastructure due to decisions beyond their control," he said.

"In partnering with DASH, we found a group that not only understands the critical role of technology in modern advice but is committed to building solutions that put advisers and their clients first, whilst maintaining important governance infrastructure. Their alignment to this principle has been clear from day one."

Meanwhile, DASH executive director of strategy Darren Pettiona added: "Strong governance and clear standards are critical to the long-term sustainability of the advice industry. "Protecting end investors and ensuring high-quality advice outcomes should always be the priority."

"Advisers play a central role in delivering informed, personalised financial outcomes. Limiting their ability to operate, or inserting platforms directly into client relationships, creates friction and uncertainty - particularly at a time when access to advice is already constrained."

DASH cautioned recent actions across the market, including platforms restricting or removing adviser access and changes to platform terms that enable direct client engagement, are risks to the ecosystem and emphasised the solution aims to build more transparent, accountable, and technology-enabled frameworks to support all stakeholders.

The move follows recent decisions by major platforms, including Macquarie and Netwealth to withdraw access for InterPrac advisers.

"At a time when less than 10% of Australians receive financial advice, the industry should be focused on expanding access - not narrowing it," Pettiona said.

"Technology has a critical role to play in enabling better oversight, clearer audit trails, and stronger governance without removing advisers from the equation."

The project included the development of 20 wholesale tokenised market use cases across multiple asset classes, including fixed income, managed funds, repos, structured products, private markets, and more. This includes the pilot of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), which was a three-year program flagged by the RBA and Treasury in September 2024.

The final report indicates a "strong interest" for the tokenisation of assets to improve efficiency, resiliency and functionality of financial markets.

"Project Acacia revealed considerable industry interest in tokenisation and demonstrated the potential for tokenisation to materially improve the efficiency and functioning of Australia's wholesale asset markets, both directly and indirectly," the report said.

"This partly reflects the relatively lower level of dynamism in Australia's wholesale financial markets compared with other areas of the financial system, such as retail payments."

The use cases highlighted opportunities across an asset lifecycle, including improved capital efficiency, shorter settlement cycles, reduced counterparty risk, 24/7 liquidity access, and reductions in intermediation costs and operational errors.

However, they also presented where the ecosystem can improve outside of tokenisation, such as more expansive use of existing fast payment rails, better alignment of operating hours with global markets, and greater transparency in key funding areas.

Commenting, RBA assistant governor Brad Jones said the initial phase was a success for Project Acacia.

"[The research phase] surfaced a set of common opportunities and challenges in making our financial system more dynamic and resilient through a period of intense technological disruption," Jones said.

"The scope of future initiatives we are outlining today is ambitious - covering tokenised assets, money and new infrastructure arrangements - and recognises that it will take a collective effort to ensure Australia's financial system is well positioned for the digital age."

DFCRC co-chief executive Tālis Putniņš added: "Project Acacia demonstrated how tokenised assets, digital money and new settlement infrastructure can improve the efficiency and functioning of wholesale financial markets."

"This includes faster settlement, reduced counterparty risk, improved capital efficiency and automated asset servicing.

"Australia achieved important world firsts through Project Acacia, including the issuance of pilot wholesale CBDC onto both public and private distributed ledger infrastructure for research purposes, demonstrating Australia's capability to play a leading role in the next generation of financial market infrastructure."

The opportunity now is to build on the momentum from Project Acacia by translating successful experimentation into real-world adoption through continued collaboration between industry, regulators and government, Putniņš said.

The completion of the project phase was welcomed by the industry, however BTC Markets chief commercial officer Paul Stonham advised the scaling of the innovation will be the challenge moving forward.

"The report explicitly identifies 'challenges to scaling' and the need for deeper regulatory and industry coordination. That's an honest assessment, and an important one," he said.

"In my experience, this is exactly the pattern you see when financial market infrastructure matures. The capability gets proven. Then the hard work begins; getting regulators aligned, getting industry to agree on common frameworks, and making sure the underlying plumbing, in this case the RBA's own settlement infrastructure, is fit for purpose."

Stonham said the continued research and industry consultation will be key to the success in expanding the capability across the broader financial markets.

Meanwhile, chief executive of AUDD Effie Dimitropoulos, a stablecoin that was heavily involved in Project Acacia, said the final report reinforces the role of stablecoins play.

"As Project Acacia demonstrates, stablecoins are already being explored alongside central bank money and tokenised bank deposits as core settlement assets in wholesale and institutional markets," Dimitropoulos said.

"This reflects a broader shift, where digital money is increasingly being incorporated into traditional financial infrastructure to support faster, more automated and lower-risk transactions.

"The findings highlight the urgency of moving from experimentation to implementation... Federal Parliament and government bodies like the RBA must continue to provide the regulatory frameworks needed to support the ongoing growth of the stablecoin industry. As the industry evolves and expands, so too must these frameworks."

Simultaneously, Coinbase Australia has launched decentralised exchange trading (DEX), expanding tradable assets in-app to millions.

Coinbase managing director APAC John O'Loghlen said the launch of DEX trading in Australia is the latest step in Coinbase's global push to build an app to exchange everything.

"For a long time, Australians wanting to trade on decentralised protocols would need to do so outside the Coinbase app, requiring an additional layer of administration and knowledge. Launching DEX is another step in our goal of enabling Australians to trade anything from anywhere in the world, all with the familiarity and security of the Coinbase app," O'Loghlen said.

"Australian users are among the first to have access to Coinbase's DEX integration, alongside those in the US, UK, and Brazil. We're looking forward to continually updating our users on new and expanded services as regulatory clarity continues to mature globally."

To access DEX, users must create a self-custody DEX wallet prior to trading, Coinbase said.

The partnership combines ViewTrade's global brokerage infrastructure with HeirWealth Atlas's portfolio performance, analytics, and tax reporting capabilities - bringing together the two functions.

HeirWealth and ViewTrade said within the Australian market, comprehensive performance and tax reporting have traditionally operated as separate to multi-asset trade execution, which they said created "reconciliation overhead" and "operational friction" for advisers and their clients.

The combined capabilities offer a single solution covering the two aspects within one integrated experience. The result is a reduction in the reconciliation burden and a materially improved experience for end clients, they said.

Commenting, ViewTrade International Australia chief executive Nigel Singh said the partnership further accentuates the strengths from both organisations while providing optimal efficiency for advisers.

"HeirWealth brings a depth of capability in performance, portfolio analytics, and tax reporting that genuinely strengthens and complements our offering at ViewTrade," Singh said.

"We have been focused on delivering institutional execution infrastructure to the Australian market, and this partnership allows us to offer our clients and partners a broader wealth management solution."

HeirWealth chief executive Ray Tubman echoed Singh's statement.

"Partnering with ViewTrade gives our clients access to global execution capability and distribution reach that genuinely complements what HeirWealth has built in wealth technology," Tubman said.

"ViewTrade's capital markets infrastructure and our reporting and analytics platform are a natural fit - and together we are able to offer something the market has been asking for."

Under the new mandate, a new online web portal will be available, pending further details from Apex on instructions for registration, and functionality including other enhanced features. All transaction and account enquiries will also be directed to Apex's contact moving forward, it said.

"Platinum account numbers will be replaced with new Apex 'Investor Numbers' which will be an important, unique identifier for investors' accounts," the announcement read.

For investors, direct debit will no longer be available for regular investment plans, with payments to be made via BPay or electronic funds transfer.

Transactions will also no longer be made in New Zealand dollars and instead will be made in Australian dollars at conversion rates determined by relevant financial institutions.

Although there will be no changes to how the funds are managed, Platinum increased minimum initial investment from $5000 to $10,000 per fund/class.

Commenting, Apex Group country head for Australia Nick Bradford said there is an increasing demand from fund managers seeking to outsource registry and administration capabilities.

"As managers continue to focus on efficiency, investor experience and access to timely data, there is a growing appetite for solutions that are more integrated, digital and adaptable to changing business needs," Bradford said.

"Platinum's decision reflects a broader shift across the industry toward outsourcing models that allow fund managers to focus on investment performance and client outcomes, while leveraging specialist providers for operational, technology and administration capability.

"We're pleased to extend our services to Platinum as part of the broader L1 Group relationship and support them with Apex's registry, administration and custody capability."

The partnership will help design data-driven features that reduce manual effort, improve adviser productivity and support new revenue opportunities for wealth providers, Iress said. The changes will be brought in a staged manner that avoids high-risk replatforming.

It said clients will begin to see the benefits in the second half of 2026.

Iress group chief executive and managing director Andrew Russell said: "Our partnership with Thoughtworks is a deliberate step to accelerate Iress' strategy through modernising our software and embedding practical, ROI-led AI capabilities."

Russell noted clients are increasingly operating in complex and regulated environments where speed, insight and efficiency matter more than ever.

With this partnership, Russell said Iress is accelerating how the platforms evolve while maintaining the core of what clients value: reliability, usability and the depth and flexibility needed to support complex advice.

Iress will implement the changes, starting with Xplan, its software offering for advisers to manage client operations.

"It strengthens our ability to deliver better outcomes for clients, while driving faster innovation, improving the speed of delivery and reducing the cost to serve. It also positions Iress to capture new long-term growth opportunities in global wealth management," he said.

Iress said it will have a disciplined spending of around 5-7% of revenue on the R&D.

Thoughtworks managing director for banking, financial services and insurance Wayne Te Paa said: "We are proud to partner with Iress to accelerate its ambitions as a modern, AI-enabled software platform."

"By combining Thoughtworks' expertise in technology, product and AI with Iress' strong market position and data assets, we are helping build a platform that enables wealth providers to better serve their clients and compete in a rapidly evolving market," he said.

"At this stage, there has been no evidence of impact on Generation Life's core systems and no evidence of unauthorised transactions. Generation Life's business continuity plan was immediately implemented and there was minimal disruption to its operations," parent company Generation Development Group (GDG) said.

"While this unauthorised access occurred through a third-party service provider, it was detected quickly by Generation Life and immediately contained."

Other subsidiaries Evidentia Group and Lonsec Research & Ratings were not affected.

Generation Life has engaged cyber security experts to assist in its response. It is also investigating the nature and scope of the unauthorised activity and verifying what information may have been impacted.

"If it is identified that any advisers or clients have been affected, they will be notified directly by Generation Life at the conclusion of that process," GDG said.

APRA, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) and National Office of Cyber Security (NOCS) have been notified of the incident.

Generation Life reported March-quarter sales of $375 million, up 57% on the prior corresponding period. Funds under management (FUM) increased to $5.3 billion, with $310 million coming in as net inflows.

FUM for Evidentia reached $34.8 billion, up 30% year on year.

"During the quarter, Division 296 legislation received Royal Assent and became law, representing a structural shift in the taxation of superannuation balances above $3 million," GDG chief executive Grant Hackett said.

"This is expected to further accelerate demand for tax-effective investment solutions outside superannuation, reinforcing Generation Life's long-term growth opportunity.

"The group is also monitoring potential changes to capital gains tax flagged ahead of the May Federal Budget, which may further influence investor behaviour and demand for tax-effective structures."

ASX said all approved market operators (AMO) advised they successfully connected to the new system ahead of market open on Monday and added there had been "extensive testing" to ensure the readiness of the new system.

Outgoing ASX chief executive Helen Lofthouse said this marked an important milestone for the market operator.

"CHESS Release 1 offers clearing services on a modern platform that is designed to be sustainable, secure and resilient, and importantly, able to accommodate significantly higher trading volumes," Lofthouse said.

"The increased market volatility we've witnessed in the past few weeks highlights the importance of providing resilient infrastructure that can process increased volumes, and CHESS also has the ability to scale further when needed."

Lofthouse added Release 1 was a key step in the execution of the CHESS Project and technology modernisation strategy for ASX.

ASX acting group executive, securities and payments, Andrew Jones said while there were successful connections from CHESS users to the new clearing component prior to market open, the true test will come from meeting key milestones throughout the day such as trading, batch settlement and end-of-day processing.

"Our teams are closely monitoring for normal operation of clearing services and supporting CHESS users," Jones said.

Jones said the two-release approach should reduce delivery risk and will manage change impact across the industry.

"More broadly, how we reassessed the CHESS Project and how we've delivered Release 1 is a direct translation of our transformation strategy; elevating the importance of stakeholder engagement and building a modern technology stack that is sustainable, secure and resilient," Jones said.

The release of the first phase of CHESS comes after the ASX Inquiry Panel released a damning final report into the ASX, focusing on governance, capability and risk management frameworks and practices across the group.

The panel conducted more than 140 stakeholder interviews, reviewed submissions and an expert technical report of the CHESS system, undertook international benchmarking, held focus groups with ASX staff and reviewed over 10,000 documents.

The key observations of the final report were consistent with the interim report, and noted resilience of critical market infrastructure had been compromised to deliver high shareholder returns; governance arrangements failed to provide the necessary focus on critical market infrastructure; the ASX lacked the aspiration to be a steward of critical market infrastructure; and capability and cultural barriers were hindering transformational change.

In addition to the interim report's findings, the panel also observed ASX's risk management and compliance practices need to mature to become fit-for-purpose and embedded in business processes.

The report determined this contributed to ASX being overly reactive and tactical in its response to incidents and identified gaps.

The final report came after ASIC took the unprecedented step in June 2025 of commissioning the Inquiry into the ASX after years of persistent issues and operational failings.

In December 2025, the ASX made commitments to ASIC on a package of reforms, and in February 2026 submitted its Commitments Plan outlining how it would deliver those reforms.

Lofthouse, who announced in February she would be stepping down, has faced immense pressure over lengthy delays to the rollout of the CHESS system.

First announced in 2015, the new technology was originally supposed to be rolled out in April 2021 but faced successive year-long delays. In 2024, ASIC sued the ASX in the Federal Court over allegedly misleading statements related to the project.

One of Lofthouse's first calls as chief executive, when she took the top job in August 2022, was to dump that initial CHESS replacement project and start over.

However, throughout her tenure the ASX has also suffered several outages, most recently in December 2025, which also became the subject of an ASIC inquiry.

DASH is undertaking another capital raise as it looks to drive further automation, accelerate its direct and partnership go-to-market strategies, and ultimately achieve profitability.

Bailador is investing up to $5 million in this round, with the raise being completed at a valuation that is 21% above its original investment cost and 23% lower than the current carrying value. Bailador said this was reflective of the current market.

It has nearly $40 million invested in DASH, as well as a further $2.5 million debt investment.

It said the equity investment is to be written down by 24% to $30.1 million and the total carrying value will be $32.6 million after the revaluation, inclusive of the debt but excluding the fresh investment.

Bailador first backed DASH in 2024, giving it $20 million towards plans to accelerate its software and platform technology, while also growing its team.

Earlier this year, DASH appointed Sarah Murray as chief product officer and James Louw as chief growth officer. Not long before that, it named Terri Ho as chief risk officer and Mark Papendieck as chief operating officer.

Singh said legacy systems create a multitude of challenges that compound each other, making it "generally hard to solve".

"The main problem we face is that institutions have their own legacy systems which have been there for a long time, and what happens is it creates a ceiling for what is possible to achieve," Singh said.

"Combined with that is the fact the data and the process are very fragmented. What I mean to say is that different systems are being owned by different teams, and there's no one person who can create a singular, unified experience of what it should look like, which results in not being able to surface up the data in a consistent way and have a singular integration model."

Singh said this creates issues when a third-party platform wants to access to an institution in terms of security and compliance concerns.

"With the compliance lens on top of it, there are frameworks like CDRs, they have an ever-evolving requirement. You could see yourself always shaping and moving goalposts," Singh said.

"In general, I think the challenges are not insurmountable. It's just that we have to be deliberately putting the investment into one architecture's singular ownership and data standardisation, and that's what we are looking at doing at Macquarie."

Singh added that data fragmentation also has a "tangible" impact, particularly for platforms.

"It's one of those problems which is manageable at a small scale, but once your platform grows, it can really constrain you," he said.

"The core of the issue is that advisers and portfolios sit across multiple different systems and multiple different databases. When the lower layers have to reach out, they end up spanning multiple different databases, which causes latencies, performance bottlenecks and inconsistencies in data."

Singh said the problem occurs because every database is set up separately, and at scale issues arise.

"When you are running in a data flow pattern your data flows are limited by the weakest link there. So, if you want to run real time, you potentially can't, because some of those purposes which you're running may be batch based, and scalability has similar challenges," he said.

"Last but not least, you can't really create any meaningful AI on top of data which is not consistent and fragmented. So, I think it's a prerequisite for you to have data confirmation."

ASX 24 trades the Australian and New Zealand interest rate, equity and commodity futures and options markets, supporting some of the world's longest trading hours.

LSEG Markets Technology will provide ASX with a high-performance, low-latency trading platform engineered for speed, resilience, and capacity.

The upgrade will help ASX reduce operational risk, giving ASX 24 space to innovate, expand its product offerings and respond to the increasing sophistication of global derivatives trading.

ASX head of markets technology Farid Sammur said upgrading ASX 24's trading platform is a critical investment in the long-term resilience and performance of Australia's derivatives markets platform.

"Our focus is on running a fast, fair, and reliable environment that enables our customers to manage their risk and discover prices," Sammur said.

"This upgrade positions ASX 24 with the infrastructure to innovate faster, continue to respond to changing participant needs, and maintain a high standard of operational excellence in our market."

LSEG Markets Technology has supported emerging markets worldwide with its technology products including Brazil, Qatar, Argentina and Singapore.

"ASX 24 plays a vital role not only in Australia but across global derivatives markets. We are proud to partner with ASX in delivering next generation trading infrastructure that enhances resilience, strengthens performance, and enables innovation," LSEG Markets Technology global head Bruce Kellaway said.

"LSEG Markets Technology underpins major exchanges around the world, and this partnership reinforces our shared commitment to maintaining strong, transparent, and globally competitive markets while demonstrating leadership in delivering world-class markets technology at scale."

ASX recently flagged a jump of 20% in its total expenses to $264.4 million in the first half of the financial year, after it agreed to implement a package of reforms to improve its operations last year.

ASIC had initiated an inquiry into ASX in June 2025 around its questionable ability to "maintain stable, secure and resilient" market infrastructure, which were brought to the forefront due to disruptions in trading in late 2024.

Speaking at the Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association annual conference on Thursday, Longo said Australia must innovate its financial system infrastructure to adopt tokenisation and artificial intelligence (AI).

Longo said tokenisation at scale will require modernising financial system infrastructure, stronger collaboration between the private and public sectors, and a simpler regulatory and policy backdrop.

Last year, the federal government consulted on its proposed digital asset regime in October, shortly after ASIC renewed guidance to label some digital assets as financial products.

"Tokenisation is a significant evolution in financial market infrastructure, with great potential, but we don't yet know how well it performs at scale against other models," Longo said.

"This is why we are bringing industry and experts together. One of our first steps will be to convene a roundtable of senior financial market experts and practitioners to work with us on future regulatory models.

"ASIC also continues to work closely with Treasury on how proposed digital asset and payment services law reforms might be implemented, so that businesses in these sectors can continue to innovate with confidence."

Meanwhile, AI continues to drive "powerful" changes across the financial world, Longo said, particularly agentic AI.

"[Agentic AI] has the potential to level the playing field in favour of consumers - to help them navigate the complexity of the financial services industry and shop around to find the best deal for them," Longo said

He also noted that jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region, like Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, have been supported by government policy, which has strongly contributed to the rapid development of AI implementation.

In Australia, federal and state governments have invested $2 billion, complemented by private investment, but need further support to help development across all metrics.

ASIC is also piloting access to advanced supercomputing infrastructure in collaboration with several academic institutions to explore "early signal intelligence" in life insurance claims and disputes, a necessary step in using quantum capabilities safely and responsibly, Longo said.

Overall, Longo said Australia is open for business and investment from local and regional players to expand on these opportunities, and ASIC endeavours to clear any barriers that may persist.

"But we can't do it alone," Longo said.

"We need fresh thinking. We need smart risk-taking... We can only achieve this together, across the Asia Pacific - and the opportunity is now.

"Backing untested innovation means being prepared to take risks. This is how we modernise and strengthen our markets."

The announcement follows Macquarie's acquisition of Hanam Data Centre in August 2024 and its plan to develop a data centre campus worth over $240 million in Sydney last year.

Under a joint venture between South Korea's Gabia, a cloud-based specialist, and MAM's Macquarie Asia Pacific Infrastructure Fund 4 (MAIF4), the parties will invest approximately $574 million (₩600bn) to develop the capacity across key locations in South Korea.

The partnership's first project will be the Ansan Data Centre, a 40MW facility, positioned to serve as an artificial intelligent (AI) infrastructure hub in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea. The development will complement Gabia's newly completed Gwacheon data centre, which has been optimised to support GPU-intensive and high-density workloads, MAM said.

Moving forward, MAIF4 will lead asset management and financing activities, including site acquisition, permitting, and project financing, as the joint venture continues to pursue domestic data centre investments, it said.

Meanwhile, Gabia, supported by its subsidiary KINX, will manage end-to-end service operations such as data centre design, network buildout, operations and maintenance, and customer acquisition.

MAM took part in several digital infrastructure deals in the past two years, including offloading a prominent data centre portfolio in October, as well as its exit from AirTrunk in September 2024. Its current portfolio has expanded significantly over the past 25 years across major regions including the Americas, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

With Division 296, AML/CTF Tranche 2, and Payday Super coming into effect on July 1, Anderson said it is crucial for financial advisers and auditors to prepare ahead of the deadline.

Financial advisers will need real-time, accurate data to remain compliant when providing advice, as those using annual data are already falling behind, Anderson said.

"Data accuracy is going to be essential for onboarding and advice, and the data feeds are now becoming a critical capability," Anderson said.

Clients are now requiring instant access to portfolio and fund administration, expecting bank-like digital experiences and online dashboards with real-time balances, as well as faster implementation of strategies, such as withdrawal and recontribution strategies in response to various life events.

Meanwhile, from a regulatory perspective, Anderson said the ATO is anticipating better and more frequent reporting from SMSF professionals while ramping up scrutiny of the sector, with expectations on service providers increasing.

"You need to continue to enforce continual operational discipline, which requires better data," she said.

"The regulatory expectations, the legislative change and the enforcement scrutiny are intensifying, making compliance more complex but also creating advantages for many of us."

While the sector has become increasingly complex, Anderson said a more rigorous approach to the establishment, ongoing administration, and winding-up of SMSFs will help reduce the risk of non-compliance.

She suggested to "slow down" the SMSF establishment process to undergo a more detailed identity check to avoid any potential fraud and identity theft activities and urged better communication with staff and clients to improve different aspects of operation.

Anderson also welcomed the leveraging of technology, software and artificial intelligence to do the heavy lifting.

"We need a greater use of technology to reduce the compliance burden. We need to leverage technology and AI to do much more and use the platform capabilities to automate tasks and create efficiencies for your business," Anderson said.

"The financial advice is going to be so important for those people keeping up to date... Use the resources around you to stay ahead of the curve, embrace technology and AI, to do more with less.

"Turn compliance into a source of confidence, value and competitive advantage."

The data centre assets and operations have now been transferred to a stand-alone company, TenPeaks Data Centres, with Spark chief executive Jolie Hodson and chief financial officer Stewart Taylor appointed as non-executive directors.

The board also comprises Pacific Equity Partners managing directors Andrew Charlier, Evan Hattersley, and director Michael Bendeli.

The transaction values the business at up to $705 million, comprising a base enterprise value of $575 million and up to an additional $130 million of earn-out enterprise value.

The valuation represents a FY25 pro-forma EBITDA multiple of 30.8x, the firm said.

Pacific Equity Partners has processed initial cash proceeds of $453 million, with additional deferred cash proceeds of up to $98 million contingent on the achievement of certain performance-based objectives by the end of December 2027.

TenPeaks chief executive Michael Stribling said the company is now aiming to capitalise on growing data needs.

"We are excited to complete the transaction and officially launch our new data centres business," Stribling said.

"With our experienced team and the support of both Pacific Equity Partners and Spark, we are confident in our ability to rapidly scale our capacity to meet New Zealand's growing data storage needs."

Meanwhile, Spark's Hodson added: "Spark has built a strong data centre business in New Zealand, operating over 23 megawatts (MW) of capacity at 11 facilities across the country."

"We're excited to complete this transaction with Pacific Equity Partners, which provides a funding pathway for the planned 130MW+ capacity development pipeline and significant growth potential beyond.

"We look forward to working together through our 25% retained stake, and as a key data centre customer, to grow the business and create further value for our shareholders, while delivering the infrastructure that will support New Zealand's digital future."

Financial Standard has reached out to Pacific Equity Partners for comment.

The update was made as it revealed its Q2 update. In the quarter to 31 December 2025, Praemium saw total funds under administration (FUA) up 14% to $70.5 billion.

Platform FUA was up 8% to $32.5 billion, including quarterly net inflows of $462 million. Gross outflows included $361 million for exiting advisers, though Praemium said these outflows are expected to diminish over time.

Praemium chief executive Anthony Wamsteker said he was pleased with the overall performance, particularly having seen strong demand for Spectrum, which helped Praemium grow its market share in the high-net-worth segment. Wamsteker said $1.4 billion in new business gross inflows was achieved.

In addition, Wamsteker said the OneVue transition was successfully completed during the quarter with the final FUA transitioning onto the platform, which allowed Praemium to consolidate its platform offerings, realise synergies from the acquisition and enhance client outcomes.

"The results reflect the strength of our product suite and the strategic progress we're making across the business," Wamsteker said.

"While adviser transitions and OneVue asset transfers have impacted outflows in part quarters, we're seeing encouraging signs that these headwinds have eased.

"With sustained adviser interest expanding engagement across both custodial and non-custodial platforms, and investment in innovation we remain confident in our long-term growth trajectory."

Praemium said it has continued to make progress across its strategic initiatives including the acquisition of Technotia Labs which will help accelerate its progress on business automation and client experience improvements; identified opportunities for automation and other AI-based improvements with strong return on investment; further progress on transforming it's superannuation fund; and competing projects including the OneVue migration and onboarding the initial Bell Potter clients.

The Series E funding round was led by the NRFC (investing $75 million) and Hostplus, with co-investors including the Future Fund, HESTA, Blackbird, Main Sequence, Funds SA, NGS Super, and QIC via its $50 million Brighter Super mandate announced in July 2025.

The funding round highlights the strength of Australia's collaborative investment ecosystem, bringing together all types of investors to provide critical capital that fuels innovation, builds sovereign capability, and supports long-term value creation, NRFC said.

The investment will enable Gilmour Space to further develop its Eris orbital rocket technology, scale its satellite and rocket manufacturing, and expand its spaceport in Bowen, North Queensland, the first and only licensed spaceport in Australia.

The company currently employs more than 220 people, and the funding will support the growth of employment across aerospace engineering, manufacturing, and skilled trades in Australia.

Gilmour Space has also demonstrated its satellite capability through the successful on-orbit operation of its 100-kilogram ElaraSat satellite bus, launched on a US rideshare mission last year.

Commenting, minister for industry and innovation and minister for science Tim Ayres said Queensland possesses a "bright future" in producing cutting-edge space technologies.

"Making things in Australia is about more than just good ideas - it takes real commitment, skilled workers, unity of purpose and strong collaboration between the public and private sectors," Ayres said.

"Queensland has a bright future in cutting-edge space and rocket technologies and advanced manufacturing, with new high-skilled jobs made possible through today's National Reconstruction Fund investment in Gilmour Space.

"Public investment like this importantly crowds in private investment, including from superannuation funds. Both the National Reconstruction Fund and universal superannuation are products of ambitious and forward-looking Labor governments - focused on boosting Australian ingenuity, backing local ideas and creating good jobs in our regions."

Meanwhile, NRFC chief executive David Gall said Gilmour Space's progression has solidified the foundation of Australia's space industry.

"Australia's size and geographic location in the southern hemisphere provide natural advantages for accessing space, and Gilmour's success will enable Australia to capitalise on the growing global demand for space launch services and satellites," Gall said.

"By building sovereign space capability that underpins our everyday life - from Earth observation and communications to national security - Gilmour's efforts will secure Australia's access to essential space services, strengthen the country's advanced manufacturing base, and create highly-skilled jobs and opportunities in the region."

Meantime, QIC private equity head of Asia Pacific Crystal Russell added: "This capital raise reflects the strong momentum Gilmour Space has built from Queensland, with proven core technologies and a demonstrated flight heritage across both launch and satellite systems."

"With a tangible pathway to commercial scale ahead, QIC is proud to once again support a Queensland company positioned to meet growing global and domestic demand for space access, while creating high-skill jobs and advanced manufacturing capability locally."

The new platform enables State Street to continue to develop "core products" like tokenised money markets funds (MMFs), ETFs, tokenised assets, and cash products, including tokenised deposits and stablecoins.

It includes wallet management, custodial, and cash capabilities, designed to support tokenised product development across jurisdictions covering both private and public permissioned blockchain networks, State Street said.

Investors can receive secure, scalable access and on-chain compliance controls through a seamless interface between digital and traditional services.

The firm said the move supports its clients in navigating the rapidly evolving digital asset sector, while leveraging capabilities from its bank division and State Street Investment Management.

Commenting, State Street president of investment services Joerg Ambrosius said the launch marks a significant step in the firm's digital asset strategy.

"We are moving beyond experimentation and into practical, scalable solutions that meet the highest standards of security and compliance," Ambrosius said.

"By pairing blockchain connectivity with robust controls and global servicing expertise, we're enabling institutions to confidently embrace tokenisation as part of their core strategy with an organisation like us that they can trust."

Meanwhile, chief product officer Donna Milrod said investors want a trusted infrastructure that is no longer experimental.

"This platform delivers that foundation in a way that is secure, interoperable and integrated so institutions can scale with confidence," Milrod said.

"This platform is built on a client partnership model that ensures ongoing evolution in line with market needs and regulatory expectations, reduces complexity while opening the door to innovation in a rapidly evolving digital financial landscape."

This comes as global adoption of digital assets grows rapidly.

"Institutional adoption of blockchain, stablecoins and asset tokenisation is accelerating globally. With clear rules in place, Australia is signalling to the world that we are serious about building a trusted, well-regulated digital asset market," CloudTech Group chief financial officer and executive director Mandy Jiang said.

"This will unlock mainstream adoption, draw institutional capital, and accelerate product innovation, transforming crypto from a niche asset class into a fully regulated part of Australia's financial system."

Domestically, late last year ASIC labelled most digital assets, including wrapped tokens, stablecoins, tokenised securities and digital asset wallets, as financial products, which will require businesses distributing these products to obtain an Australian financial services licence.

In a statement to Financial Standard, Ninety One's portfolio manager and co-head developed markets specialist credit Darpan Harar said a few key companies are behind the surge.

"Most of the issuance has come from large, investment-grade 'hyperscalers' - the likes of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta - which are now funding a sizeable amount of their AI capex with record-sized bond deals," he said.

An article by BetaShares head of fixed income Chamath De Silva noted the capex numbers hyperscaler companies and AI labs are committing to in terms of infrastructure buildouts are demanding unprecedented amounts of debt financing.

According to reports referenced by De Silva, tech-related bond issuance will dramatically surge in 2026 and beyond, with some projections suggesting over $2 trillion in annual AI-related capex by 2029.

De Silva told Financial Standard: "In our view, AI capex-related debt issuance will be the big story for credit markets in 2026 and will drive a gradual widening in credit spreads more broadly as the market absorbs this supply."

"We're seeing the technology and communications sectors underperform, with spreads widening on a relative basis, in both US investment grade and high yield, so capex-related issuance is already having an impact at the margin."

In his article, De Silva explained that US yields have increased over the last five years, and annual AI-related capex is expected to grow from US$400 billion to over US$2 trillion by 2029. The bond market's capacity to accommodate for this spike in issuance is a major concern, he said.

"We believe that the biggest constraint to the capex spending commitments being reached is not the debt market yet, but rather energy and power," he said.

"The cost of debt capital is still low in absolute terms, credit spreads tight, and big cap tech's balance sheet health is still very good. For these reasons, we see no major barriers for a significant levering up by the hyperscalers."

Morgan Stanley provided a comprehensive breakdown of the opportunities and risks promised by AI across fixed income markets from 2025 to 2028.

Based on global capex data centres, the research estimates US$2.9 trillion as of 31 October 2025.

Breaking this number down, the findings identified US$1.4 trillion would be from hyperscaler cash flow, US$200 billion from corporate debt insurance and US$150 billion from securitised credit insurance.

Also, US$800 billion in opportunities for private credit through asset-based finance and debt funding, and US$350 billion from other capital sources, the research indicated.

As the new year unfolds, the question at the forefront of this technological revolution is whether debt markets can finance a technological revolution whose revenue model remains unproven.

A dissonance is emerging between bond investors who are being asked to finance the AI buildout with uncertain returns, and AI companies in need of enormous upfront capital with no proven revenue model, De Silva explained.

Harar commented: "AI-linked issuance is clearly rising at a meaningful pace - but this still represents a much smaller share of global credit markets than their weight in equity indices."

"That said, we expect dispersion to increase within credit markets, with clearer winers and losers in AI-exposed areas - particularly in the leveraged finance markets where the tech/software sector is a larger share of the market."

Harar and De Silva agree credit markets are facing mounting pressure from every angle, including: compounding refinancing needs from previous debt cycles, increased competition US Treasury issuance, and concerns that the bond market can handle the spike in issuance while maintaining quality standards.

"The expected surge in bond issuance, partly driven by AI-related capex, is likely to weaken the strong technicals that have supported markets such as USD investment grade for some time," Harar said.

"Against that backdrop, we expect higher levels of dispersion both between and within sectors. [...] Overall, a more dispersed environment favours credit managers with a bottom-up, global and unconstrained approach."

Frontier Advisors' latest Frontier AI Index report, which is based on 210 responses from local and international respondents, found that Australian (55%) and global (51%) equities fund managers see AI as an "important additionality" to their research process.

However, more than a quarter (27%) of global equities managers said it is becoming an integral part of their research, while only a minority of Australian counterparts (18%) admitted to this.

Australian equities managers appear to be the group furthest behind when allocating resources to dedicated AI development. About a quarter of them (27%) reported to having no resources in this role. Almost half (46%) have allocated less than 1% of their resources to AI integration, while 64% expect to spend less than 5% of their previous year's budget on AI integration.

Among the other asset classes, private markets managers (26%) said AI is also becoming more prominent in their research process.

Fixed income managers (22%) and others (24%) have the highest proportion of managers viewing AI as a "nice to have," indicating a more cautious or exploratory approach to adoption, the survey found.

In terms of actual progress, Australian equities managers are in the "exploring/proof of concepts" stage (24%) compared to other asset classes, reflecting a slower pace of adoption.

"Among those who are scaling across multiple functions, it is actually fixed income managers leading the pack (27%) driven by AI's application in credit risk assessment and macroeconomic forecasting. Private markets exhibit a higher proportion of early deployments (16%), with AI being used for deal screening and due diligence. However, scaling across functions remains limited," the report read.

As a whole, productivity and saving time are the most cited expected benefits of generative AI for nearly 40% of respondents.

Speed to insight was the second most significant benefit for 23%, with Australian equities managers specifically rating it highly at 27% versus 22% for all other asset classes on average.

Fifty four percent of fund managers are utilising a combination of private and public applications.

Public SaaS models, such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, are the second most popular, chosen by 18% of respondents ahead of private-only models at 16%.

Copilot and ChatGPT are the most popular among global and Australian equities managers. Copilot is the leading platform for fixed income managers.

"Despite its utility, AI adoption faces challenges such as hallucinations (proposing outcomes which are not reflected of credible, vetted data sources), bias in outputs, and the need for robust validation processes to ensure accuracy and reliability," Frontier said.

"The majority of organisations use AI in a supportive capacity, with humans remaining the final decision-makers in investment processes."

Apex said the strategic lift-out enables it to integrate Mercer's experienced administration team and operational capabilities directly into its own business, enhancing service delivery and continuity for clients.

The transaction, subject to Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approval, is expected to complete around the end of the first quarter of 2026.

"Australia offers strong growth potential for us. The superannuation technology and servicing sectors are a key strategic focus for Apex Group, and by combining innovative technology with high-quality service, we are committed to delivering market leading superannuation administration to funds and their members," Apex Group chief executive and founder Peter Hughes said.

"We aim to expand our operations in Illawarra and across Australia, creating more opportunities for staff and increasing our presence."

Mercer Pacific chief operating officer Antony Proksa said Mercer's decision to transition its stand-alone superannuation administration business aligned with its strategic objective "to focus on growing our core wealth businesses in superannuation and investments, alongside Mercer Workforce Solutions and Mercer Marsh Benefits".

Mercer recently lost its administration mandate with NGS Super, with the fund transitioning to GROW Inc. It also lost a mandate with Australian Ethical and, in 2023, ANZ Staff Super.

Apex has been ramping up activity in Australia in recent years. In January last year, Iress entered into a binding agreement to sell its superannuation business to Apex. Iress said the decision to divest the superannuation business followed a strategic review as part of the company's transformation program.

The year prior, Apex Super partnered with Novigi for super data and technology services. Also in 2024, Apex received $1.6 billion from Carlyle Group and Goldman Sachs to execute its growth strategy.

Apex Group currently has 400 employees in Australia providing a range of administration services to more than 800 funds within the industry.

As at July 2025, statistics from the Australian Custodial Services Association show Apex Group had about $300 billion in assets under administration (not held in custody) in Australia.

The new campus lifts AirTrunk's total planned investment in Victoria to more than $7 billion, while further aligning with the government's National AI Plan to draw more investments into infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI).

It will also enable "smarter" government services, faster business innovation, and stronger human connection, AirTrunk said, while creating opportunities for local talent and suppliers.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan hailed the announcement.

"Victoria is leading Australia's digital transformation, and investments like this will strengthen our state's position as a hub for cloud and AI innovation, create thousands of jobs, and deliver sustainable infrastructure that supports our growing technology ecosystem," Allan said.

MEL2 is set to bring over 354 megawatts (MW) capacity, adding more than $5 billion in new direct investment and lifting AirTrunk's total deployable capacity in Melbourne to over 630 MW.

The new site will also complement AirTrunk's existing Australian sites, including SYD1 (121 MW+), SYD2 (158 MW+), SYD3 (330 MW+), MEL1 (276 MW+) and MEL2 (354 MW+) - delivering a combined capacity of more than 1.2 gigawatt (GW).

Further, MEL2 will create over 4000 jobs during the multi-phase construction and over 200 direct jobs once operational, while creating in excess of 1000 full-time jobs to support its data centres.

It comes as the data centre sector is generating $12.6 billion in gross value added per terawatt-hour of energy consumed, outperforming sectors such as mining and manufacturing, it said.

Data centres also consume less than 0.1% of Australia's water, and by 2030, the sector will have invested up to $1.1 billion in recycled water infrastructure.

Since 2020, the industry has invested $3.1 billion in grid infrastructure, with total investment expected to reach $7.2 billion by 2030, AirTrunk said.

The acquisition follows last week's announcement of a new hyperscale campus in Osaka (OSK2), delivering up to 100 MW of IT load and a $3 billion of new direct investment in Japan.

Commenting, AirTrunk founder and chief executive Robin Khuda said: "Australia has set bold ambitions to become a global AI hub, and demand for AI-ready infrastructure continues to grow. MEL2 is part of our response."

"Working closely with Invest Victoria, we're expanding in Melbourne to support Australia's AI future while creating new opportunities for local businesses and communities.

"AI data centres require significant upfront investment, and AirTrunk's strong balance sheet and proven regional track record help give global AI customers confidence in reliable, on-time deployment in Australia."

OSK2 and MEL2 - which will become AirTrunk's 14th and 15th data centres respectively - will deliver a total capacity in excess of 2.6 GW across Australia, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia, it said.