Morgan Stanley pushes tokenized equities to 2027: "The client demand really isn't there"

Morgan Stanley is bringing tokenized equities to its own trading venue later than announced. Instead of the second half of 2026, trading is now due to begin in the first quarter of 2027. Amy Oldenburg, who runs the bank's digital asset strategy, explained the delay on October 12, 2026 to the trade publication The Block with a simple gap: the products do not exist yet, and without products hardly any client asks for them. In Germany the bank does not sell equity tokens to retail clients in any case. Buy something like that here today, though, and you are not buying what Morgan Stanley is planning, and that difference decides what the instrument is worth if it comes to the test. Morgan Stanley pushes the launch to the first quarter of 2027 The bank wants to make tokenized equities tradable on its own alternative venue, a so-called alternative trading system. Oldenburg first described the plan on March 24, 2026 at the Digital Asset Summit in New York, then with the second half of 2026 as the target. The Block now calls the first quarter of 2027 the more realistic timetable. A delay of around six months sounds like little. The date falls, however, into a phase in which several large in...