Digital assets create new “rails” for money movement

It complements existing banking infrastructure.

Digital assets are transforming the banking landscape, especially for cross-border transactions, according to Ronit Ghose, Head of Future of Finance at Citi. Speaking at the Singapore FinTech Festival, Ghose highlighted digital assets as an additional “rail” that enhances rather than replaces traditional banking systems.

“Think about digital assets as another rail. It supplements the existing banking rails,” Ghose explained, likening the use of digital assets to having multiple forms of transportation within a city. “We can move around… using many different ways of transport, in the same way we’re going to move money using many different rails.”

Blockchain-based digital assets are particularly valuable for cross-border exchanges, where traditional financial systems face limitations due to governance and technology challenges.

Beyond digital assets, other technologies such as generative AI, blockchain, and quantum computing are set to reshape the financial industry. While AI is expected to be transformative in the near term, quantum computing presents both opportunities and challenges.

“Quantum… has implications for cybersecurity, for the integrity of existing code and systems,” Ghose observed. With the potential to disrupt current security architectures, quantum computing will require new frameworks to ensure transaction and data security in finance.