Aviva Investors has launched its first tokenised fund share class, putting a U.S. dollar liquidity product on the XRP Ledger in a move designed to bring regulated, blockchain-based investing to eligible institutional clients.
The new digital share class of the Aviva Investors USD Liquidity Fund has been rolled out in partnership with Ripple, following regulatory approval from the Central Bank of Ireland. The authorisation places governance and investor safeguards at the centre of the initiative, with the tokenised units operating within an established Irish UCITS framework.
Announced on 29 July, the launch turns the two firms’ strategic agreement from February into a live investment product and represents Ripple’s first partnership with a European asset manager. The move gives eligible institutions access to a conventional short-term dollar liquidity portfolio through fund shares recorded and administered on blockchain infrastructure.
Same fund, new digital wrapper
The tokenised share class mirrors the traditional USD Liquidity Fund in full, maintaining the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections. The innovation lies in the way ownership is issued, recorded and managed, rather than in any change to the underlying assets or strategy.
Aviva Investors described the product as “the first tokenisation of an Aviva Investors fund”, confirming that only eligible investors will be able to hold the new share class. Those investors will access their holdings via digital wallets, while the fund’s underlying portfolio continues to be held by its existing traditional custodian under the usual regulated arrangements.
To support the new structure, Komainu, a regulated institutional digital asset custodian, has been appointed to provide custody for the tokenised share class. Blockchain infrastructure provider Licuido supplies the technology that issues the fund tokens and administers transactions on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).
Regulated structure at the core
The fund operates through an Irish vehicle listed on the Central Bank of Ireland’s register as Aviva Investors Liquidity Funds plc, an authorised undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS). The Aviva Investors USD Liquidity Fund is one of the approved sub-funds within that structure.
Aviva has underlined that Central Bank approval anchors the launch within a robust regulatory framework, covering areas such as governance, safekeeping of assets and investor protection. Tokenisation, in this model, is confined to the mechanics of how fund units are represented and transferred, rather than altering the risk and oversight standards that apply.
By combining a familiar UCITS money-market structure with tokenised share issuance, Aviva and Ripple are targeting institutions that want potential operational efficiencies and faster processing, but are unwilling to step outside established regulatory and money-market boundaries.
XRPL chosen as infrastructure
The XRP Ledger is being used to issue and administer the tokenised shares, with Ripple highlighting its relatively low-cost transactions and infrastructure developed with regulated financial markets in mind.
According to Aviva, the XRP Ledger has handled more than 4 billion transactions to date, supports close to 8 million active wallets and is maintained by more than 130 independent validators. Those figures are cited as evidence of the network’s maturity and resilience for institutional-scale use.
The launch of the Aviva Investors USD Liquidity Fund share class follows the first tokenised money market fund on XRPL, which saw abrdn’s dollar liquidity fund brought onto the network via tokenisation platform Archax. Aviva’s product adds another institutional-grade option that combines an Irish UCITS structure, access via digital wallets and regulated custody services.
Foundation for further tokenised products
Aviva and Ripple see this launch as the opening phase of a broader collaboration. Their partnership sets out plans to place additional regulated fund structures on the XRP Ledger from 2026 onwards and beyond, using this initial product as a template.
By keeping the conventional fund’s risk and liquidity profile intact while changing only the ownership technology, the two firms aim to show how tokenisation can sit within, rather than outside, mainstream regulatory frameworks.
Across the XRP Ledger, the tokenised asset market now spans funds, securities, repurchase agreements and loans. Aviva’s new share class adds a cash-management tool that gives eligible investors a tokenised claim on a diversified short-term portfolio, without altering the protections and characteristics they expect from a traditional dollar liquidity fund.
Alongside the fund launch, a new institutional platform has been developed to allow customers to mint, redeem and manage Ripple USD through a web interface and APIs, providing an additional layer of infrastructure for institutions engaging with tokenised products on the network.
