Intraday Repo to Drive Balance Sheet Efficiencies: Digital Asset at ISDA AGM

Tokenization of financial assets could increase repurchase agreement capacity by up to 60%, according to Digital Asset. The company presented these findings during the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) Annual General Meeting (AGM) on April 30, 2026.

The presentation focused on the implementation of intraday repo, a mechanism that allows for the borrowing and lending of securities within a single business day. Digital Asset stated that moving these transactions to a distributed ledger technology (DLT) framework would deliver huge balance sheet efficiencies for financial institutions.

Intraday Repo and DLT Integration

Traditional repurchase agreements typically operate on settlement cycles that do not allow for the rapid movement of collateral and cash throughout the day. This creates liquidity gaps and requires firms to maintain larger collateral buffers to manage risk.

By utilizing blockchain and DLT, the settlement of both the collateral—specifically US Treasuries—and the cash leg can occur near-instantaneously. Digital Asset indicated that this shift to real-time settlement enables the intraday repo market to function more fluidly, reducing the amount of capital that remains idle.

The proposed system relies on the tokenization of US Treasuries, where the ownership of the government bond is represented by a digital token on a ledger. This allows the asset to be transferred between parties in seconds rather than hours or days.

The Role of Stablecoins and DTCC

To facilitate the cash portion of the intraday repo, the framework incorporates stablecoins or tokenized deposits. These digital assets serve as the payment medium, ensuring that the cash transfer happens simultaneously with the transfer of the tokenized Treasury bond, a process known as delivery-versus-payment (DvP).

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is a central component of this infrastructure. As the primary clearing and settlement entity for the US markets, DTCC’s involvement is necessary to ensure that tokenized movements are reconciled with the broader financial system and comply with existing regulatory requirements.

The integration of DLT into the DTCC ecosystem is intended to remove the need for multiple layers of reconciliation between banks and custodians, which currently slows down the repo process and increases operational costs.

Balance Sheet Efficiencies

Digital Asset argued that the primary benefit of this technology is the optimization of the balance sheet. When repo capacity increases by up to 60%, firms can mobilize their high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) more effectively.

This efficiency allows banks to reduce the amount of excess liquidity they must hold to meet regulatory requirements, as they can source and return collateral with greater precision and speed.

The ability to execute repos on an intraday basis means that a firm can borrow cash to meet a short-term obligation and return that cash once funds become available, all within the same window. This eliminates the need to hold overnight positions for liquidity that is only required for a few hours.

Market Implications

The shift toward tokenized repo markets represents a broader trend in the financial sector to migrate legacy assets onto DLT to solve long-standing settlement delays. The ISDA AGM 2026 highlighted these developments as part of a transition toward a more programmable financial infrastructure.

Industry participants noted that the success of this model depends on the widespread adoption of tokenized standards for US Treasuries and the regulatory acceptance of stablecoins as valid settlement assets for institutional-grade transactions.