# RWA Daily Update - 2026-09-23

## Lesson title
Cheaper infrastructure does not guarantee cheaper access

Access date: September 23, 2026 (PDT), checked against the local system clock.
Educational review of an established report, not a new market announcement.

## Authoritative source checked

- Publisher: Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI).
- Title: Tokenisation in the context of money and other assets: concepts and implications for central banks.
- Publication: October 2024, report to the G20.
- Existing journal source link: https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d225.htm
- Official landing page checked: https://www.bis.org/publications/tokenisation-context-money-and-other-assets-concepts-and-implications-central-banks
- Full PDF retrieved and parsed with Python urllib and pypdf: https://www.bis.org/publications/tokenisation-context-money-and-other-assets-concepts-and-implications-central-banks.pdf
- Evidence: printed/PDF pp. 16-17 (section 3.3, Market power and network effects) and p. 20 (section 4.2, Integration of financial market functions; Interoperability between platforms).

## Verified facts and exact excerpts

1. Network effects: additional investors increase a network's value to existing investors, issuers and application developers. High fixed setup costs can require a critical mass of users and transactions (p. 16).
   - Excerpt: "each additional investor increases the value of the network for existing investors".
2. Concentration: network effects can produce concentration in financial services and infrastructure, potentially intensified by combining functions (pp. 16-17). Scope and scale efficiencies may concentrate activity in one or a few arrangements (p. 20).
3. Distribution of savings: market power and lack of interoperability can prevent efficiency savings from reaching users (p. 20).
   - Excerpt, line breaks normalized: "Arrangements with market power that are not interoperable may translate efficiency gains into higher profits, instead of lower transaction costs."
4. Fragmentation can strand resources across platforms (p. 20).
   - Excerpt: "locking-up of liquidity and securities across several platforms".
5. Platform operators may lack incentives for horizontal interoperability when seeking dominant positions (p. 20). The report presents this as a possible incentive, not a finding against a named platform.

## Facts versus educational interpretation

- The tokenized-bond platform that automates reconciliation but leaves fees unchanged is explicitly an illustrative example, not a reported case.
- Comparing total fees, custody charges and the practical cost of changing providers is our due-diligence interpretation of the report. No prescribed fee cap, legal portability right or guaranteed exit facility is claimed.
- No allegation of overcharging or monopoly is made against a named company.
- Tokenization may genuinely improve efficiency. Whether users receive the benefit requires evidence; neither universal savings nor universal harm follows from the report.
- No price forecasts, return estimates, buy/sell recommendations or investment advice.

## No-hype summary

A platform's internal cost saving is not automatically a customer's saving. Network effects and integrated services may improve operations while concentrating market power. Compare actual user costs and practical alternatives, not just technology claims.

## Watch question

Who keeps the efficiency saving, and what would it cost me to leave?

## Retrieval limitations and novelty check

The legacy PDF URL https://www.bis.org/cpmi/publ/d225.pdf resolved through web extraction to an abbreviated landing-page summary rather than the full report. The canonical landing page exposed the official PDF link; direct retrieval and page-level extraction resolved the limitation. A first PDF keyword search for legal-conflict/fungibility terms returned no matches, so pages 16-20 were examined directly before selecting this lesson. No inaccessible source or search snippet is used as proof.

Prior journal headings through September 22 were reviewed. Earlier entries address interoperability, operational concentration and collateral fragmentation; this lesson focuses on the distinct question of who captures efficiency savings and the role of platform market power. The existing BIS/CPMI external source link remains sufficient. The foundation and all prior source-note links are retained, with this dated note added to the source trail.