New Zealand Financial Markets Authority launches discussion paper seeking views on tokenisation in financial markets

The New Zealand Financial Markets Authority (FMA) published a discussion paper on tokenisation in financial markets and invited submissions to open dialogue on its current use and future potential in New Zealand. The FMA is seeking input to inform how it could support innovation, improve regulatory certainty and enhance consumer protection. The paper describes tokens as a subset of virtual assets that can be created, traded and stored on programmable distributed or centralised ledgers. It outlines tokenisation as typically involving the issuance of a token using distributed ledger technology to represent ownership of real-world assets, while noting that some digital tokens may be the sole asset with no real-world link. The FMA’s questions focus on how the current market and regulatory environment helps or hinders domestic tokenisation activity, the benefits and risks tokenisation could bring to New Zealand financial markets, and what a future market and regulatory environment could look like. Submissions close on Friday 31 October 2025.