Tokenisation at population scale needs public chains, interoperability, liquidity: Nandan Nilekani

Tokenisation needs to be designed as a population-scale infrastructure rather than merely a mechanism for issuing digital tokens, Nandan Nilekani, Chairman, Infosys, said at Global FinTech Fest 2026 on Thursday. Nilekani showcased three pilots based on a common underlying architecture, tokenisation of dairy assets, tokenised warehouse receipts and securitisation of assets, and said the same technology can be deployed across multiple asset classes and use cases.The architecture is designed to be public-chain agnostic, capable of handling high transaction volumes and incorporating encryption and cybersecurity requirements, he said. Nilekani said a key challenge is ensuring that tokenised assets are actually used after issuance. “A token is a trustable unit because it has all its attributes. But it still has to reach the right place on time,” he said, warning that without interoperability and liquidity, the ecosystem could end up with “a lot of token issuance, but no activity”.