Skip to content
Wiki
Home / Institutions / Franklin Templeton

Franklin Templeton

Institution · Asset manager

Franklin Templeton is the US-headquartered global asset manager (USD 1.6 trillion-plus AUM) running the longest-lived production tokenised MMF (money-market fund) in the market: the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund (FOBXX), distributed under the BENJI brand. FOBXX has been live on Stellar since April 2021, predating BUIDL by three years, and has subsequently extended to Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base, and Solana (Franklin Templeton press release on Solana extension, October 2025). For an institutional tokenisation operator, FOBXX / BENJI is the production reference for tokenised-fund mechanics that has had the longest runway under live regulatory and operational conditions, and the worked example of an asset manager building the issuance and transfer-agency stack in-house rather than going through an external platform partner like Securitize.

Named products and pilots

  • FOBXX (Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund), distributed under the BENJI brand. A 1940 Act registered government MMF (money-market fund) whose share class is recorded on a permissioned ledger, live since April 2021. Distinguished from BUIDL by the registered-fund structure (versus the 3(c)(7) wrapper restricted to qualified purchasers), which makes it accessible to a wider investor base. Total net assets roughly USD 864 million as of February 2026, up from USD 742 million in September 2025 (rwa.xyz, as of February 2026). Stellar carries the bulk of supply, with Polygon and newer chains holding smaller pools.

What it is

Franklin Templeton runs the FOBXX programme through Franklin Advisers, Inc., the registered investment adviser, with the underlying portfolio in US government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements consistent with the 2a-7 government-MMF regulatory profile. The on-chain wrapper is operated under Franklin Templeton's own SEC-registered transfer-agency capacity, which is structurally distinct from the BUIDL pattern (where Securitize is the registered transfer agent on behalf of BlackRock as fund issuer). Franklin Templeton is therefore one of the very few asset managers running its own end-to-end tokenisation stack: fund issuer, transfer agent, and platform operator all inside the same group.

The BENJI brand sits on top of the FOBXX product as the institutional and retail interface, distributed through the Benji Investments wallet and through asset-manager and broker-dealer partner channels. The product is open to both institutional and retail US investors under specific eligibility rules, which differentiates FOBXX from BUIDL's qualified-purchaser-only perimeter. APAC distribution through Franklin Templeton's Singapore-licensed asset-management entity has been a deliberate growth angle, with the fund accessible to eligible Singapore investors through the SCS framework's adjacent investment-product perimeter and through Singapore-licensed distribution partners (Ledger Insights coverage of Singapore expansion).

Operating model

The operating model is the in-house tokenised-MMF pattern, with Franklin Templeton acting as fund issuer, transfer agent, and platform operator. Subscriptions clear off-chain into the fund administrator account, FOBXX tokens are then minted to the subscriber's wallet address as the operative share-register entry, and redemptions reverse the path. The token is a 1:1 representation of the underlying fund share, with daily yield distribution calculated off-chain through the standard fund-accounting cadence and credited to holder positions on-chain.

The multi-chain extension has tracked institutional demand and ecosystem partnerships rather than a single-chain bet. Stellar was the original chain (2021) and remains the operational base for a meaningful share of the BENJI retail flow, with Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum, Base, and Solana added progressively across 2024-2025 to position the product into different institutional and DeFi-adjacent allocator pools. Cross-chain transfer is handled through Franklin Templeton's in-house bridging infrastructure rather than through a third-party bridging protocol.

The named integration set on the institutional side includes WisdomTree's distribution channels for some retail-grade flow, exposure as a reserve and counterparty asset for several payment-stablecoin and on-chain treasury programmes, and incremental visibility on the Canton Network through the BlackRock and Goldman Sachs BUIDL-adjacent infrastructure work (the specific FOBXX-on-Canton scope is not in current public coverage and should be verified against Franklin Templeton disclosure). The Singapore distribution channel through MAS-licensed partners has been a recurring angle in regional trade press through 2024-2025.

Why it matters

Franklin Templeton's importance for tokenisation operators rests on FOBXX's track record, its in-house transfer-agency stack, and its APAC distribution reach.

  • FOBXX is the production reference. The fund has been live since April 2021 and has accumulated more operational history under live tokenisation conditions than any other US-distributed tokenised MMF. Operators evaluating the long-run mechanics of tokenised funds (NAV cadence, yield distribution, redemption flow, regulatory examination, fund-administrator integration) get more signal from FOBXX's track record than from any other product.
  • The in-house stack matters. Franklin Templeton operates as both fund issuer and SEC-registered transfer agent, which differs from the BUIDL pattern (Securitize as transfer agent on behalf of BlackRock) or the Centrifuge pattern (off-chain SPV plus platform layer). The asset-manager-operated stack model is replicable for other asset managers willing to build the registered-transfer-agent capacity in-house, and FOBXX shows how that pattern operates at scale.
  • The APAC distribution sets FOBXX apart. Singapore's Project Guardian perimeter and the broader MAS-licensed asset-management franchise have been a deliberate growth channel for FOBXX, distinguishing the product from BUIDL's US-qualified-purchaser concentration. FOBXX reads as one of the few US-issuer tokenised MMFs with credible Singapore-licensed distribution for an APAC operator.

The competitive map is partly BUIDL on the institutional-tokenised-MMF side (different distribution perimeter, larger AUM in late 2025 but younger), partly OUSG on the on-chain-feeder side (Ondo wraps BUIDL and adjacent products), partly the bank-issued tokenised cash programmes (Kinexys BDA, JPMD), and partly the still-thin field of Asia-issued tokenised MMFs (Progmat-issued MMF wrappers in Japan, MAS-perimeter authorised funds in Singapore).

Recent moves

  • 21 May 2026DigiFT, the Singapore exchange holding Capital Markets Services and Recognised Market Operator licences from MAS, was appointed to distribute BENJI to accredited and institutional investors across Asia, with BENJI's market capitalisation exceeding USD 800 million as of the announcement (Ledger Insights).
  • 2025-2026. The BENJI Investments retail interface continued to expand its distribution and feature set, with on-chain yield distribution and tokenised-fund holder records as the operative product surface.
  • October 2025FOBXX extended to Solana, joining Stellar, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Aptos, Arbitrum, and Base (Franklin Templeton).
  • 2024-2025. Continued AUM growth on FOBXX across the multi-chain footprint; specific period-by-period figures should be checked against Franklin Templeton disclosure rather than asserted from this entry.
    1. FOBXX rolled out into Singapore through Franklin Templeton's MAS-licensed entity, with eligible Singapore investors accessing the product through institutional and adjacent retail channels (Ledger Insights).

Open questions

  • Period-specific AUM split across the multi-chain FOBXX deployment. The aggregate is published on a regular cadence; the per-chain breakdown is not consistently disclosed.
  • Whether FOBXX is in scope for the Canton Network institutional infrastructure work, and on what terms. Public coverage references Franklin Templeton involvement in the broader institutional-tokenisation ecosystem; the specific Canton scope is not in current disclosure.
  • The competitive positioning of FOBXX against BUIDL as the latter accumulates AUM faster on the qualified-purchaser side. FOBXX has the longer track record and the broader (institutional plus retail) distribution perimeter; the durability of that position depends on whether BlackRock pursues retail-distribution extensions of BUIDL.
  • APAC institutional uptake on FOBXX beyond the Singapore MAS-licensed channel. The Hong Kong, Japan, and Korea distribution status is not consistently disclosed.
  • Franklin Templeton's positioning under the US GENIUS Act for any future tokenised wrapper that touches the payment-stablecoin perimeter. FOBXX is fundamentally an MMF rather than a stablecoin, but the regulatory read on tokenised MMFs as quasi-money instruments is still being formed.