Every time you allocate money into your 401(k), DTCC processes it.
Every equity trade in the United States - over 99% of them - clears and settles through DTCC.
Last year alone, it processed $4 quadrillion in activity. A million billions. Invisibly, reliably, at a cost of cents per transaction.
Private markets have no equivalent. Yet.
Talia Klein is Head of Wealth and Investment Solutions at DTCC - the organization that built the infrastructure layer underneath public markets, and is now turning its attention to private.
She's arrived at this role with a track record built at every major inflection point of the last fifteen years. Collateral eligibility systems at J.P. Morgan after the financial crisis. Institutional blockchain at Digital Asset Holdings before most people knew what it was. Crypto custody at BNY, built from scratch, in five years.
She has a habit of showing up early to the infrastructure problems that later turn out to matter most.
Private markets is the next one.
Private shares settle at T+90. Public markets just moved to T+1. Retail allocations to alternatives sit at 3% (institutions are at 20%) and if that gap closes even halfway, it adds $10 trillion in new capital that today's infrastructure cannot handle.
In this episode of the Modern Capital Podcast, Talia and Marc cover:
The 1960s paperwork crisis that shut the NYSE on Wednesday afternoons - and why the digital version is already forming in private markets
Why DTCC's Fund/SERV playbook is the exact template private markets needs - and why it won't be a straight copy
The three-sided market problem: why private shares can't just be mapped to public equities
T+90 vs. T+1: who closes that gap, and how
Why the standards problem isn't technical - it's about convening 100 institutions and making it worth their while
Where DTCC is placing its bets across private funds, private shares and private credit
"There's gotta be a better way."
That phrase built DTCC in 1986. Talia thinks private markets is about to say it out loud.
We’re hosting The 2026 Silicon Valley Private Credit Summit in San Francisco on May 7, bringing together a curated group of operators, lenders and technology builders from across private credit.
Apply to attend here.
