Key Highlights
- Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its £22 billion Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger after a similar tokenized dollar fund launched in July 2026.
- The new sterling class launched with an initial £50 million investment, bringing Aviva’s combined tokenized offerings to more than £86 million, though this remains under 0.4% of the sterling fund’s total assets.
- Tokenized shares mirror traditional fund shares with the same investment objective, risk profile, and regulatory protections, while subscriptions purchase shares in the regulated money-market fund rather than XRP itself.
Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its largest fund on the XRP Ledger. The move involves the Aviva Investors Sterling Liquidity Fund, which holds approximately £22 billion in assets under management (AUM).
On October 26, 2026, Ripple announced the move, following its partnership with Aviva earlier this year. It comes after the July launch of a similar tokenized share class for Aviva’s US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the same network.
Not the Entire Fund, but a New Share Class
The £22 billion figure is linked to the overall size of the conventional Sterling Liquidity Fund. The entire portfolio has not moved onto the blockchain. Instead, Aviva created a new share class that represents ownership in the existing fund through digital tokens on the XRP Ledger.
Aviva invested an initial £50 million into the new sterling tokenized class. Combined with the earlier dollar class, the two tokenized offerings now hold more than £86 million, or roughly $116 million. This remains a small fraction, under 0.4%, of the sterling fund’s total assets.
The Sterling Liquidity Fund is an Ireland-domiciled UCITS money-market fund first launched in 2002. It invests in high-quality, short-term sterling-denominated debt instruments and aims to deliver relatively low-risk returns with daily liquidity.
How the Structure Works
Tokenized shares work as a digital twin of traditional fund shares. Some eligible professional investors can hold them in digital wallets while retaining the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity features, and regulatory protections as conventional shares.
Bank of New York Mellon will work as custodian of the underlying assets. Komainu provides regulated institutional digital-asset custody, and Licuido supplies the tokenization technology. These partners also supported the earlier dollar fund launch.
Subscriptions buy shares in the regulated money-market fund, not XRP. Transactions on the XRP Ledger require only small amounts of XRP for network fees.
Aviva Advances Ripple Collaboration with Sterling Fund Launch
Aviva Investors and Ripple announced their collaboration in February 2026. It was Ripple’s first partnership with a European asset manager and Aviva’s first move into tokenized fund structures. The firms aimed to explore issuing and managing regulated funds on the public XRP Ledger for greater efficiency in settlement and distribution.
The July dollar launch received approval from the Central Bank of Ireland, described at the time as a regulatory first for tokenized fund structures of this type. The new sterling class builds on that foundation.
Why Tokenization Matters for Money Market Funds
Aviva has highlighted that yields on competing money-market funds often sit within a few basis points of each other. As a result, platform access, system integration, and transparency are becoming more important factors for institutional cash management.
Potential benefits of the tokenized format include improved operational efficiency, possible 24/7 access, and near-real-time settlement compared with traditional processes. However, practical limits remain. Tokens are available only to eligible professional investors who pass full KYC and AML checks. Transferability and redemption still follow the rules of the underlying regulated fund.
Amid the boom in tokenization, such as tokenized stocks, the development adds another institutional use case for the XRP Ledger in real-world asset tokenization. Other managers, including Franklin Templeton, have also issued tokenized fund shares on the network. Aviva has indicated it may expand tokenization efforts to additional funds and asset classes over time.
