BNY Launches Digital Transfer Agent to Service Natively Tokenised Funds

BNY has unveiled a Digital Transfer Agent service designed specifically for funds issued natively on blockchain networks, running alongside its conventional transfer agency operation that already services approximately $8.6 trillion in assets. The offering targets a structural gap: as asset managers bypass the digital-twin model and issue funds directly onto permissionless blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana, the legacy reconciliation problem between a token representation and an on-chain record disappears entirely when ownership is recorded in a single place from inception.

Three named counterparties anchor the initial rollout. Baillie Gifford co-designed the solution and has already deployed it for a recently launched UK digitally native fund running on Ethereum and Solana. BNY’s own asset management arm, BNY Investments Dreyfus, will use it for a new digitally native money market fund called BLIQUID. BlackRock is expected to deploy it for BSTBL, a previously announced digital share class aimed at stablecoin issuers, a use case that illustrates the competitive pressure: BlackRock already uses Securitize as digital transfer agent for its BUIDL fund and is expanding its natively digital fund range with that firm.

The solution supports both stablecoins and fiat currency for issuance and redemption settlement. The broader catalyst is the anticipated use of money market funds as tokenised collateral, which is expected to accelerate demand for funds issued natively on-chain rather than as mirrored representations of conventional vehicles. For operators evaluating fund infrastructure, the signal is that incumbent custodians are now building the rails to compete directly with specialist digital transfer agents rather than routing clients toward them.