Aviva Investors Puts $29B Sterling Fund Share Class on XRP Ledger With Ripple
October 27, 2026
A £22 Billion Fund Gets a Blockchain Share Class
Aviva Investors, the asset management arm of UK insurer Aviva, launched a tokenized share class of its Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger on Monday, working with Ripple. The fund holds about £22 billion ($29.4 billion), which makes it the firm’s largest, according to the joint announcement. The move is notable for its scale rather than its novelty. Tokenized money market funds already exist, but most are small pilots. This is one of the largest conventional funds in Europe to add an on-chain access route.What Aviva Actually Launched
The new share class sits inside an existing fund rather than creating a new one. The Sterling Liquidity Fund dates back to 2002, is domiciled in Ireland as a UCITS money market fund, and invests in high-grade, sterling-denominated short-term debt with daily liquidity, The Block reported. Aviva Investors seeded the tokenized share class with £50 million ($66 million) of its own money. Combined with a US dollar version launched on the XRP Ledger on July 29, approved by the Central Bank of Ireland, the firm now has more than £86 million invested across two tokenized share classes, which it says makes it one of Europe’s largest providers of tokenized money market funds. Mark Versey, chief executive of Aviva Investors, said the firm was “thrilled to be able to announce the launch of our second fund in the tokenisation space” and that it plans to explore further opportunities with Ripple.How a Tokenized Money Market Fund Works
A money market fund is a conservative pool that holds short-term government and bank debt, and investors use it to park cash while earning a modest return. Normally, a transfer agent’s database records who owns what, and buying or selling shares can take a day or more to settle. Tokenization changes the record-keeping, not the fund. Aviva uses what it calls a “digital twin” model: the fund keeps operating off-chain exactly as before, while an investor’s holding is also represented as a token on the XRP Ledger. The token proves ownership, can be held in a digital wallet, and can be moved on a public blockchain. Aviva says the tokenized shares carry the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections as the conventional fund. In plain terms, the investor owns the same thing, just recorded elsewhere.
Who Can Access It, and Who Cannot
This is not a product anyone can buy on an exchange. The share class is open to eligible investors with digital wallets, which in practice points to institutional and professional clients who clear the fund’s eligibility checks. No public listing or open secondary market was announced. The launch’s plumbing is traditional on one side and crypto-native on the other. The Bank of New York Mellon holds the fund’s underlying assets, while Komainu, a regulated digital asset custodian, and Licuido, a tokenization infrastructure platform, supported the on-chain side. That split is deliberate: the fund’s assets stay inside regulated custody even as ownership records move onto a public ledger.Why Ripple and the XRP Ledger Won the Mandate
Aviva first partnered with Ripple in February 2026, when Ripple described the firm as its first European investment management partner. The dollar fund followed in July, and the sterling fund now completes the pair. Ripple pitches the XRP Ledger as fast, low-cost and energy-efficient. Since 2012, the network has processed more than 4 billion transactions, has nearly 8 million active wallets, and is run by more than 130 independent validators. Nigel Khakoo, Ripple’s senior vice president of trading and markets, said, “Markets are moving to 24/7 access and settlement is moving to real-time, always-on rails.” The ledger still trails rivals in tokenized assets. Cointelegraph reported, citing RWA.xyz, that the XRP Ledger ranks ninth among blockchains for tokenized real-world assets, with about $642 million in value and roughly 2,900 unique holders. Adding even a small share class to a £ 22 billion fund is a meaningful step up for a network at that scale, and it follows JPMorgan’s decision to take its JPM Coin to Ethereum earlier this month, another sign that large institutions are choosing public chains.Could Tokenized Funds Become the Standard for Cash Management?
Aviva’s own figures show how early this is. More than £86 million in tokenized share classes is a rounding error against a £22 billion fund, and more than half of that is Aviva’s own seed money. Whether that changes depends on institutional demand rather than retail. If treasurers and fund managers find that holding cash as a token lets them move money and settle trades faster, tokenized share classes could grow into a standard option alongside conventional ones. If the on-chain route adds cost or compliance friction without a clear payoff, it may stay a niche. Versey said Aviva believes tokenized funds “can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes,” but efficiency gains tend to show up only once enough counterparties are on the same rails. For now, people watching crypto market prices are likely to see little direct effect on XRP, since the fund’s token represents fund shares, not the network’s native coin.Traditional Finance Is Using Public Blockchains as Plumbing
Monday’s launch says a lot about where tokenisation is heading. Aviva did not create a crypto product. It took a 24-year-old sterling fund, kept its custodian, its regulator, and its risk profile, and added a public blockchain as an extra set of rails. That pattern, a digital twin of something conventional, appears to be becoming the preferred route for large institutions, and it suggests the next phase of adoption may be largely invisible to end investors. The fund stays the fund. The record of ownership moves on-chain, and when a firm running a £22 billion cash fund makes that move, the technology is no longer an experiment.
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Madiha Riaz
Madiha is a seasoned researcher in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and emerging Web3 technologies. With a background in organic chemistry and a sharp analytical mindset, she brings scientific depth to decentralized innovation. Since discovering crypto in 2017 and investing in 2018, she’s been uncovering and sharing deep insights into how blockchain is redefining the digital asset landscape.
