Global market structure is poised for another year of rapid evolution, with multiple forces converging to redefine how institutional participants operate in 2026.
A new outlook from Crisil Coalition Greenwich highlights a series of structural trends that will directly affect capital markets, regulatory frameworks and trading behaviours in the year ahead, noting that the pace of transformation “has accelerated every year since the 2020 pandemic inflection point,” and there’s little indication that momentum will slow as we enter 2026.
Competition among firms, technological breakthroughs and policy shifts are among the key drivers shaping market outcomes with AI’s divergent role one of the standout themes in capital markets this year.
While Silicon Valley’s rapid innovation pushes AI deeper into research workflows, firms on both the buy- and sell-side are expected to be more cautious about applying these tools to execution and according to the report, “Silicon Valley firms can move fast and break things in pursuit of AI progress. Capital markets firms cannot.”
As a result, AI will continue to reshape research processes while trading platforms and execution systems are likely to retain more deterministic technologies throughout 2026.
A marked relaxation in regulatory posture, particularly in the US, has emboldened platform builders and new market entrants. But the report’s authors warn that loosening oversight can be a double-edged sword.
“Despite the boost the change in regulatory approach has provided to the industry, we’d be remiss not to think about the potential for the exuberance to become irrational,” said Kevin McPartland, head of Research for Market Structure & Technology at Crisil Coalition Greenwich. “Finding the balance between markets that self-police and over-burdensome regulation is notoriously tricky.”
This shift stands to accelerate innovation across traditional equities, fixed income and digital asset markets, but it may also amplify systemic risks if governance structures don’t keep pace.
Institutional engagement with prediction markets is another area expected to pick up in 2026.
While principal trading firms currently provide much of the liquidity in these nascent arenas, asset managers and bank traders could increasingly incorporate these instruments into broader hedging toolkits as datasets mature.
On the digital assets front, tokenization and yield-earning on-chain instruments are set to expand. Stablecoins gained traction in 2025, particularly following regulatory clarity on the on-chain movement of dollars, but a key limitation has been their inability to generate traditional interest rates. The report anticipates growth in tokenized money market funds and Treasury instruments this year, catering to institutional cash management strategies where earning yield on idle balances becomes a priority.
Beyond the headline trends, the analysis flags continued developments in: ongoing refinancing and adjustments in private credit markets; the resurgence of differentiation in human client service despite automation; further reforms in US equity market rules; and heightened focus on broker-dealer and bank disintermediation.
Tokenizing high-quality assets is also highlighted as a potential inflection point for market structure at large.
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