Alpaca & Broadridge add governance to tokenised equities

Alpaca and Broadridge have integrated Broadridge's governance infrastructure into Alpaca's Instant Tokenisation Network, extending proxy voting and investor communications to tokenised securities on Alpaca's platform.

The arrangement is intended to serve both retail and institutional investors across traditional and tokenised equities. It adds voting entitlement reconciliation and regulatory disclosures to the brokerage, custody and clearing services already available through Alpaca's network.

Tokenised securities have drawn growing interest across financial markets as firms explore ways to represent shares and other assets on blockchain-based systems. A central question for issuers, brokers and investors has been whether tokenised holdings can offer the same shareholder rights and administrative safeguards as conventional securities.

Under the integration, Alpaca will continue to provide the regulated brokerage infrastructure behind the tokenisation of equities, including custody and clearing of the underlying asset. Broadridge will add the governance layer, covering proxy voting, shareholder communications, regulatory disclosures and voting entitlement reconciliation.

The combination is meant to help investors retain the rights and transparency they expect in established capital markets. It also addresses the practical challenge of maintaining accurate shareholder records when assets are issued and held across multiple blockchain networks and intermediaries.

Governance focus

Broadridge's platform is designed to support vote delivery and entitlement reconciliation for both beneficial and registered holders of tokenised equities. That matters because ownership chains can become more fragmented when securities move between traditional financial intermediaries and distributed ledger systems.

The service provides a single platform for voting and regulatory disclosures for both categories of holders. It also gives brokers, custodians, issuers and funds a unified operational view across traditional and tokenised equity structures.

Institutional investors will be able to integrate voting for tokenised equities into existing governance workflows and reporting systems, including voting choice programmes. Retail investors, meanwhile, will be able to access eligible meetings through ProxyVote.com.

"Tokenisation has the potential to expand access to global capital markets, but it must preserve the investor protections that market participants already expect," said Yoshi Yokokawa, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Alpaca.

"Through our partnership with Broadridge, we're combining modern tokenisation infrastructure with trusted governance capabilities, enabling our partners to build tokenised investment products without compromising shareholder rights, regulatory compliance, or investor transparency," Yokokawa said.

Market context

The announcement reflects a broader effort by financial services groups to adapt market infrastructure for digital assets without separating them from the compliance and governance systems used in public markets. In practice, that means extending familiar processes such as proxy distribution, vote tabulation and mandatory disclosures to tokenised ownership models.

Broadridge's governance platform can be applied across several tokenised securities models, including issuer-listed structures, synthetic securities issued outside the United States, and third-party tokenised shares within the United States.

Broadridge already runs a large communications and governance operation in traditional markets. Its investor communication systems serve more than 200 million retail and institutional investor accounts globally.

"Today's announcement marks an important step forward in our goal of enabling the adoption of tokenised equities by ensuring that they are paired with institutional-grade governance capabilities regardless of where they are held or tokenised," said Doug DeSchutter, President of Broadridge's Investor Communication Solutions business.

"For decades, Broadridge has invested in the platform that powers investor communications and shareholder engagement for more than 200 million retail and institutional investor accounts globally. We're now bringing those same capabilities to tokenised equities-enabling accurate voting, specialized investor experiences, and regulatory disclosures," DeSchutter said.

Scale and reach

Alpaca supports more than 10 million brokerage accounts across hundreds of fintechs and institutions in more than 40 countries. The US-headquartered firm describes itself as a self-clearing broker-dealer focused on infrastructure that gives financial firms access to both traditional and on-chain assets.

Broadridge, which provides technology and operational services to the financial industry, said its systems process and generate more than 7 billion communications each year. Its platforms also underpin average daily trading of more than USD $15 trillion in equities, fixed income and other securities globally.

In digital assets, Broadridge said its Distributed Ledger Repo solution settles tokenised real assets at a scale of more than USD $357 billion a day.