Aviva Investors, the asset management arm of British insurer Aviva, has launched a tokenized share class of its Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger, committing £50 million ($66 million) of its own money to the new class. The launch, announced on October 26, 2026, moves part of the asset manager's sterling money market fund on-chain. Money market funds hold short-term, low-risk debt instruments and are widely used by institutions for cash management. One day later, on October 27, BNY, which holds the fund's underlying assets, and Ripple said that BNY's digital asset custody platform now supports XRP and RLUSD, Ripple's US dollar-backed stablecoin.

How the Tokenized Share Class Works

The new class gives eligible investors access to the Sterling Liquidity Fund through digital tokens issued on the XRP Ledger, the public blockchain that underpins the XRP cryptocurrency. The fund itself is a large vehicle, holding approximately £22 billion in assets under management.

Aviva is using what it calls a “digital twin” model. The fund keeps running off-chain as it always has, while investors' holdings are reflected on the ledger. Nothing about the fund's core setup changes: it retains the same investment objectives, the same risk profile, and the same daily liquidity. It also keeps its regulatory protections under UCITS, the European framework that governs funds sold to investors across the region.

The shares are issued as Multi-Purpose Tokens, or MPTs, on the XRP Ledger. They are aimed at specific institutional investors, who hold them in digital wallets. Because issuance is directed at a defined set of institutions, participation in the tokenized class is limited from the outset. There is one notable restriction: the tokens are not transferable between holders, so they cannot be passed around or traded freely.

The sterling class is structured to sit alongside the firm's existing dollar-denominated offering, extending its tokenized money market fund range to a second currency.

Building on an Earlier Dollar Launch

This is not Aviva's first move in this direction. In July 2026, the firm launched a tokenized share class of its USD Liquidity Fund. With the sterling class added, Aviva's combined tokenized money market fund assets now exceed £86 million ($116 million), and the new £50 million commitment accounts for the larger share of that total.

The work is part of a partnership between Aviva Investors and Ripple. It positions Aviva as a notable provider of tokenized money market funds, particularly in Europe. The niche is drawing growing attention from traditional asset managers, since tokenized fund shares combine a familiar, regulated wrapper with the record-keeping infrastructure of a public ledger.

The BNY Custody Component

The BNY announcement adds weight to the launch, coming one day after the tokenized class was revealed. BNY, formally The Bank of New York Mellon, is one of the world's largest custodian banks, safeguarding assets on behalf of institutional clients. It already serves as custodian for the fund's underlying assets, so its custody platform's support for XRP and RLUSD connects the traditional side and the on-chain side of the arrangement under one roof.

What It Means

For the XRP Ledger, the launch is a credibility signal. Hosting a tokenized share class of a fund with approximately £22 billion in assets gives the network a real institutional use case beyond payments. It also shows that a regulated UCITS fund can maintain its existing legal structure while a share class is represented on a ledger.

The use of MPTs is worth watching as well. If other asset managers adopt the same token standard for regulated products, it could become a template for issuing restricted, compliance-friendly assets on the ledger.

There are limits to keep in mind, however. The tokens cannot be transferred between holders, which caps how much secondary market activity the product will generate. The investor base is restricted to eligible institutions, so retail participants will not see any direct access. The size also tempers the picture: more than £86 million in tokenized assets is a solid start, but it remains modest against the scale of the underlying funds. The real test is whether outside institutional money follows Aviva's own seed capital into the tokenized classes — and, from there, whether Aviva extends the model to additional currencies or share classes.