Aviva Investors, the £273 billion asset management arm of UK insurer Aviva, on October 26 launched a tokenized share class of its £22 billion ($29.4 billion) Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger. The firm committed £50 million ($66.7 million) to the new class, bringing its total tokenized fu...
"We believe tokenised funds can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes." — Mark Versey, CEO, Aviva Investors
Aviva Investors, the £273 billion asset management arm of UK insurer Aviva, on October 26 launched a tokenized share class of its £22 billion ($29.4 billion) Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger. The firm committed £50 million ($66.7 million) to the new class, bringing its total tokenized fund exposure across two products to £86 million ($116 million). The sterling class follows a U.S. dollar liquidity fund share class that went live in July. BNY Mellon serves as custodian for the underlying assets; Komainu holds the on-chain keys; and Licuido provides the tokenization infrastructure.
The announcement landed one day before Ripple's Swell 2026 conference opens at The Shed in Manhattan — a three-day, 1,500-attendee event featuring executives from CME Group, BNY, State Street, Barclays, Robinhood, and ICE across 80-plus sessions. Aviva's move places a UCITS-domiciled, Ireland-regulated money market fund on a ledger that has processed more than 4 billion transactions since 2012 and now carries roughly $4.26 billion in tokenized value across hundreds of products.
The deal sharpens a competitive field where BlackRock's BUIDL leads at $2.9 billion in AUM, Franklin Templeton's BENJI has crossed $2.5 billion, and Ondo Finance's OUSG holds $625 million. Aviva's entry marks the first time a top-tier European insurer-owned asset manager has committed a sterling-denominated money market fund to a public blockchain.
The tokenized share class uses a digital-twin model. Each token on the XRP Ledger mirrors a share in the existing Sterling Liquidity Fund. The underlying portfolio — high-grade, sterling-denominated short-term debt instruments — remains unchanged. Investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics, and regulatory protections carry over identically from the conventional share class.
The infrastructure stack:
Ripple has also made strategic investments in both Licuido and ZILO, tightening its grip on the tokenization middleware layer that connects traditional fund administration to on-chain settlement.
The fund was established in 2002 and is domiciled in Ireland as a UCITS-compliant vehicle. At £22 billion in AUM, it ranks among the largest sterling money market funds in Europe. The fund invests in high-grade, short-duration sterling instruments and targets low-risk returns with daily liquidity.
Key metrics:
| Attribute | Detail | |---|---| | Fund AUM | £22 billion ($29.4B) | | Tokenized share class commitment | £50 million ($66.7M) | | Total tokenized exposure (both classes) | £86 million ($116M) | | Domicile | Ireland (UCITS) | | Currency | GBP (sterling class) | | Dealing frequency | Daily | | Year established | 2002 |
Aviva Investors manages £273 billion across multi-asset, private, and public market strategies. The firm's private assets division alone manages over £46 billion. CEO Mark Versey has positioned the tokenized classes as a step toward broader efficiency gains in fund distribution and settlement.
The XRP Ledger, live since 2012, operates with 130-plus independent validators and 8 million active wallets. Network statistics relevant to institutional adoption:
The BatchV1_1 amendment activated on the XRPL mainnet on October 9, 2026, enabling atomic settlements and secure account delegation — capabilities that institutional fund managers require for programmable compliance and batch processing of subscriptions and redemptions.
The tokenized money market and Treasury fund segment has grown from under $1 billion in early 2024 to over $15 billion by April 2026. Total tokenized real-world assets crossed $22 billion in on-chain AUM by May 2026. The major players:
| Fund | Issuer | AUM (2026) | Chains | Min. Investment | Fee | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | BUIDL | BlackRock | $2.9B | 7 chains | High | N/A | | BENJI (FOBXX) | Franklin Templeton | $2.5B | Multiple | Retail-accessible | 0.15% | | USYC | Circle/Hashnote | $3.0B | Multiple | Institutional | N/A | | USDY | Ondo Finance | $2.1B | Multiple | Varies | N/A | | OUSG | Ondo Finance | $625M | Multiple | Institutional | N/A | | Sterling Liquidity (tokenized) | Aviva Investors | £50M ($66.7M) | XRP Ledger | Eligible investors | N/A |
Aviva's tokenized class is small relative to the leaders. The significance lies not in the £50 million commitment but in the issuer profile: a £273 billion European insurer-asset manager placing a regulated UCITS fund on a public ledger. BlackRock's BUIDL holds approximately 40% market share in the tokenized Treasury category. Franklin Templeton's BENJI grew 100%-plus year-to-date from $594 million in January to $2.5 billion by July 2026.
Astute Analytica projects the tokenized money market fund market at $250 billion by 2035, implying a 41.1% compound annual growth rate from 2026. That projection remains unverified by independent sources.
Ripple's Swell conference, running October 27–29 at The Shed in Manhattan, serves as the backdrop for several recent institutional announcements:
Cross River Bank (October 15): Integrated RLUSD into its core banking operating system. Fintech clients can convert between USD and RLUSD and settle on the XRP Ledger around the clock alongside ACH, wires, and real-time payments through a single API. Services are currently limited to select U.S. states.
Meritz Securities: The Korean securities firm partnered with Ripple for institutional custody and tokenization services across Korean capital markets. Meritz is Ripple's fourth Korean partner in 2026, following Kyobo Life Insurance, Kbank, and Jeonbuk Bank. It marks Ripple's first securities-firm partnership in the country.
Arf Financial: Partnered with Ripple to offer RLUSD-backed settlement liquidity to licensed cross-border payment firms operating on the XRP Ledger.
Privy (Stripe-affiliated): Collaborating with Ripple to introduce embedded wallets on XRPL, designed to support programmable wallets for AI-agent-initiated transactions.
Nigel Khakoo, Senior Vice President of Trading and Markets at Ripple, stated: "Markets are moving to 24/7 access and settlement is moving to real-time, always-on rails."
The conference speaker roster includes Terrence Duffy (Chairman and CEO, CME Group), Tom Farley (CEO, Bullish), and representatives from BNY, Robinhood, ICE, Barclays, and State Street. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse will deliver the keynote.
The Aviva tokenized share class carries meaningful restrictions that distinguish it from fully on-chain products:
According to analysis by Crypto.news, Alastair Sewell of Aviva indicated that inbound enquiries from institutional investors pushed the manager beyond watching the tokenization sector from the sidelines, though direct DeFi engagement had not occurred.
The digital-twin structure means settlement finality for the token does not equate to settlement finality for the fund share. The underlying fund still operates on conventional dealing cycles. This is a representation layer, not a native on-chain fund.
The Aviva-Ripple deal is a signal, not a watershed. At £50 million, the tokenized sterling class represents 0.23% of the underlying fund's £22 billion in assets. The real significance lies in the institutional profile of the issuer and the infrastructure partners assembled: BNY Mellon custody, Komainu digital asset safeguarding, Licuido tokenization, and Ripple's ledger.
The tokenized money market fund sector has grown from near-zero to over $15 billion in on-chain AUM in roughly two years. But access remains gated. Investor whitelisting, daily dealing cycles, and geographic restrictions on stablecoin on-ramps mean these products operate more as institutional proofs of concept than open-market instruments.
For the XRP Ledger specifically, the numbers tell a more concrete story: $4.26 billion in tokenized value, an eightfold increase in tokenized Treasuries, and RLUSD's rise to $2.5 billion in market cap. Ripple's Swell conference this week will test whether these metrics translate into additional commitments from the CME, State Street, and Barclays executives on stage.
The economic value question remains straightforward: tokenization reduces settlement friction, but the funds themselves generate returns from the same underlying short-term debt. The value capture shifts to infrastructure providers — custodians, tokenization platforms, and ledger operators — not to the end investor. Whether that infrastructure layer justifies its existence at scale depends on whether daily dealing cycles give way to genuine 24/7 atomic settlement. That transition has not happened yet.