Hanwha Investment Securities has unveiled a detailed blueprint to grow its digital asset business into a next-generation investment platform.

Son Jong-min (손종민), head of future strategy at Hanwha Investment Securities and an executive director, said at CIS2026 held at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul on April 17 that the firm will build a Digital Asset Platform, or DAP, to tokenise and trade a range of assets, starting with private market assets.

Son said stablecoins are no longer simply assets held while waiting to invest, but are becoming a means of payment. He also said the market is shifting toward nearly all assets, including art, real estate and global stocks, being traded in token form.

He said the spread of on-chain finance so far has been led by decentralised finance, or DeFi. He said DeFi has first targeted weaknesses of traditional finance in terms of speed, cost, 24-hour trading and transparency.

He cited the strengths of traditional finance as trust, regulatory frameworks, large-scale funding networks and stable risk management capabilities. Son described a structure combining DeFi's advantages with the trust of traditional finance as "TraDeFi" and said it is time for traditional financial firms to respond in earnest to changes in the digital asset market.

The DAP that Hanwha Investment Securities is preparing is a platform designed to enable on-chain investment in a range of assets beyond existing financial assets. Son defined DAP as an "Everything Investment Platform."

The plan is to start the service initially with high-net-worth and family office clients and then gradually expand to the public. In the first stage, private market assets are expected to be central.

Son said the firm is preparing to enable tokenised trading of private credit, hedge funds, real estate, intellectual property (IP) and unlisted shares.

For this, Hanwha Investment Securities said it is building tokenisation and trading, infrastructure and custody systems with partners at home and abroad.

It also set out a plan to use overseas bases such as Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia to introduce the service first in regions where regulations allow. The target timing for the platform launch is the first quarter of 2027.

Son said the firm plans to launch the platform overseas first and then expand to South Korea and elsewhere in line with regulatory conditions. He said the digital asset business is not a simple technology experiment but the next growth axis for traditional finance.

Son said, "Until now DeFi has led the way, but now I think it is time for traditional finance players."