Aviva tokenized fund puts £22 billion sterling money market fund on XRP Ledger
Aviva Investors launched a tokenized share class of its largest fund, the roughly £22 billion Sterling Liquidity Fund, on the XRP Ledger and seeded it with £50 million of its own money.
A major British asset manager has taken another step onto public blockchains. The new Aviva tokenized fund share class, announced on Monday by Aviva Investors and Ripple, lets eligible investors hold units of the firm's biggest fund, the Sterling (GBP) Liquidity Fund, as tokens on the XRP Ledger.
What happened
The fund manages about £22 billion, or roughly $29.4 billion, according to Cointelegraph, and invests in high-grade short-term sterling debt with daily liquidity. Aviva itself put £50 million into the new tokenized class, the companies said. It is the manager's second such launch after a tokenized class of its USD Liquidity Fund went live in July.
The structure uses what Aviva calls a "digital twin" model. The Ireland-domiciled UCITS fund, first launched in 2002, keeps its existing off-chain setup, custody stays with The Bank of New York Mellon, and the token acts as an on-chain access layer with the same objective, risk profile and investor protections as the conventional shares. Komainu, a regulated digital asset custodian, and Licuido, a tokenization platform, supported the launch.
With more than £86 million now invested across its two tokenized classes, Aviva says it is one of Europe's largest providers of tokenized money market funds.
Why it matters
Money market funds are the most natural product to tokenize because they behave like cash. A token that can move around the clock can serve as collateral or settlement cash without leaving a regulated wrapper, which is why banks and asset managers are racing into the space, as we described in our report on Wall Street banks' tokenization plans.
For the XRP Ledger, an Aviva tokenized fund is a meaningful client win. The network ranks ninth among blockchains for tokenized real-world assets, with about $642 million in distributed value and roughly 2,900 unique holders, Cointelegraph reported, citing RWA.xyz. Ripple has been building out the institutional stack around it, including the Privy wallet integration. Ripple said markets are shifting toward 24/7 access and real-time settlement.
The amounts remain small next to the underlying fund. Tokenized holdings of £86 million are a fraction of a percent of the £22 billion pool, so this is still an access experiment rather than a migration. The XRP Ledger itself has processed more than 4 billion transactions since 2012 and is maintained by more than 130 independent validators, according to the launch statement, figures Ripple uses to court institutions that worry about reliability.
What's next
Aviva and Ripple said they plan to keep exploring further tokenization together. The test will be whether outside investors with digital wallets subscribe in size, and whether the tokens start being used as collateral elsewhere. Until then, the Aviva tokenized fund is mostly a signal of intent. Launch details are in Ripple's announcement.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.