#26: Myths in Post-Trade Wholesale FX

15 Oct

29th October 2025

With:

| Dirk Bullmann (CLS Group)

| Keith Bear (Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance)

In Session #26, Dirk Bullmann (Managing Director for Public Policy, CLS Group) and Keith Bear (Fellow at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance) join FNA for a masterclass in myth-busting the post-trade FX landscape. While the industry is flooded with buzzwords like "atomic" and "real-time," our guests explain that the primary goal of wholesale FX isn't just speed—it’s the mitigation of settlement risk and the optimization of liquidity.

The discussion challenges the narrative that traditional finance is "slow" due to outdated tech. Instead, it reveals how the current T+2 cycle and multilateral netting provide massive capital efficiencies that "instant" models would effectively destroy. From the vulnerabilities of decentralized nodes to the "Liquidity Paradox," this session provides a realistic blueprint for how the FX layer will evolve without sacrificing the stability that CLS’s $7 trillion-a-day system provides.

Key Discussion Points:

The Atomic vs. Instant Distinction: Why "atomic" (all-or-nothing) settlement is a powerful risk tool, but "instant" settlement is a liquidity drain.
The Liquidity Paradox: How moving to real-time gross settlement (RTGS) would require banks to hold significantly more capital, potentially increasing the cost of global trade.
Decentralization vs. Resilience: Analyzing why DLT doesn't automatically mean safety—addressing cloud dependency, "quantum-readiness," and the need for centralized governance.
The "Advanced" Status Quo: Why existing infrastructures like CLS are already highly sophisticated, and why T+2 is often an operational choice rather than a technical limitation.
Hybrid Evolution: Exploring "three daily cycles" as a pragmatic bridge between legacy windows and the 24/7 future of tokenized assets.

Watch on Demand:

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