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Asia T+1: speed without fragility
21 September, 2026
As Asia's markets assess accelerated settlement, this white paper explores how the region can move to T+1 while maintaining liquidity, resilience and cross-border investability. It examines the operational, funding and market-structure challenges of compressed timelines and the capabilities needed for a successful transition
Our Asia T+1: speed without fragility white paper examines how Asian markets can transition to shorter settlement cycles while maintaining liquidity, resilience and cross-border investability. As settlement timelines compress, the challenge is not simply processing transactions faster, but replacing lost time with earlier certainty across funding, FX, operational processes and market participants
Authored by Boon-Hiong Chan and Heidi Lee, the paper explores why Asia's path to T+1 differs from other markets due to its multiple currencies, infrastructures, regulatory regimes and time zones. It examines lessons from existing accelerated-settlement markets and highlights three key areas of readiness: time-zone-driven post-trade compression; FX timing and funding certainty; and exception and dependency management.
The white paper also considers how greater standardisation, lifecycle observability, artificial intelligence and future settlement innovations could support more efficient post-trade processing.
We hope the paper provides useful insights and practical guidance for market participants as they prepare for the next phase of settlement cycle/market modernisation transformation in Asia.
Authors
Boon-Hiong Chan
Industry Applied Innovation Lead, Head of Securities & Technology Advocacy APAC, Trust and Securities Services, Deutsche Bank
Heidi Lee
Product Management, Trust and Securities Services, Deutsche Bank