Aviva Investors Goes On-Chain: USD Fund Now Tokenized on XRP Ledger 💸

Aviva Investors, the London-based asset management arm of Aviva Plc, has launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) following approval from the Central Bank of Ireland, marking the firm's first tokenization of a fund structure. The tokenized share class will be available to eligible investors with digital wallets, and the launch follows the partnership Aviva Investors struck with Ripple earlier this year to advance tokenization on the XRPL.

The US Dollar Liquidity Fund invests in high-grade, short-term US dollar-denominated debt securities and money market instruments issued by governments, banks and corporations. According to Aviva, the tokenized share class offers the same investment objective and liquidity profile as the conventional fund. The underlying assets will continue to be held by custodian BNY Mellon, while crypto custodian Komainu will provide digital asset custody and Licuido will supply the tokenization infrastructure.

"This marks the first tokenisation of an Aviva Investors fund, and follows the announcement of the partnership between the firm and Ripple early in the year," the company said in a press release. Ripple's XRP Ledger provides the blockchain infrastructure for issuing and managing the tokenized shares.

The launch is notable as Ripple's first partnership with a European investment firm to tokenize real-world assets (RWA) at scale. On the XRPL, the new product follows Archax's 2024 tokenization of UK asset manager abrdn's US Dollar Liquidity Fund. More broadly, traditional asset managers including BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and Apollo have also launched tokenized funds as demand for blockchain-based financial products continues to expand.