Broadridge Financial Solutions will provide shareholder voting and transfer-agency services for the New York Stock Exchange’s planned tokenized securities platform, adding a major market-infrastructure provider to the exchange’s effort to put public equities on blockchain networks.
Under the arrangement announced Monday, Broadridge will supply digital services for shareholder governance, ownership records, communications and voting. The work is intended to connect tokenized shares with the administrative systems public companies already use, rather than treating blockchain-based trading as a standalone market function.
The NYSE is developing a platform that would move stock trading onto blockchain rails. The exchange has said the approach could allow shares to change hands around the clock, although the platform remains in development. Nasdaq is also working on tokenized stock offerings as U.S. exchanges and financial firms examine how distributed-ledger technology could be incorporated into securities markets.
Governance moves alongside trading
Tokenized equities would still require standard shareholder services, including maintaining records of who owns shares, distributing dividends and enabling votes on corporate actions. Broadridge’s role is focused on those functions, including the ability to connect digital ownership records with proxy voting and shareholder communications.
Investors could vote through supported digital wallets, brokerage platforms or Broadridge’s systems, according to the announcement. The company will also provide digital transfer-agency services, while retaining its traditional transfer-agency and proxy-voting capabilities for securities held through existing market channels.
“Broadridge is building the governance layer for tokenized equities,” Broadridge CEO Tim Gokey said in a statement.
Gokey said the company’s services would combine its digital and traditional offerings for issuers, regardless of how shares are traded or where they are held. The statement positions the arrangement as an effort to address the operational requirements that accompany tokenized trading, including verified ownership and corporate voting.
Market infrastructure joins the project
Broadridge serves more than 10,000 public companies globally and settles more than $15 trillion in securities trades daily, according to the announcement. Its participation places shareholder administration alongside the other infrastructure being assembled for the NYSE’s project.
- Company: Broadridge Financial Solutions, ticker BR
- Partner: New York Stock Exchange
- Services: Onchain governance, digital transfer agency, shareholder communications and proxy voting
- Trading technology: A planned blockchain-based platform for tokenized securities
The announcement also identifies Securitize and tZERO as participants in the broader infrastructure effort. The NYSE’s plan therefore involves both the technology for moving tokenized securities and the systems needed to support companies and investors after ownership changes.
The initiative comes as exchanges explore whether blockchain networks can support public-market functions beyond settlement or trading. For issuers, the Broadridge arrangement addresses records and voting; for investors, it describes routes to exercise shareholder rights through digital wallets, brokerages and other supported platforms. The NYSE has not announced that the planned tokenized stock platform is operating.
