BNY Moves $8.6 Trillion Transfer Agency Business onto Blockchain Rails
BNY Moves $8.6 Trillion Transfer Agency Business onto Blockchain Rails #
BNY has launched a blockchain-native version of its transfer agency business, moving legal fund-ownership records directly onto public blockchains.
The Digital Transfer Agency (TA) platform, announced July 29, maintains authoritative ownership records and economic value directly on-chain rather than using “digital twin” structures that mirror traditional ledgers. The service is designed to handle both conventional and digitally native tokenized funds across multiple jurisdictions and blockchains through a single platform.
BNY’s transfer agency unit services roughly $8.6 trillion in assets across 7.6 million investor accounts, covering fund subscriptions, redemptions and shareholder registrations. The bank, which oversees more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration overall, said it will run the new system in parallel with its existing infrastructure as clients and regulators become comfortable with on-chain settlement and compliance.
Edinburgh-based investment manager Baillie Gifford, which manages approximately $262 billion in assets, is already live on the platform for what the firm describes as the UK’s first fully native, regulated tokenized fund. BlackRock and BNY’s own Dreyfus money-market and cash-management unit are also expected to adopt the service for planned tokenized products.
BNY chief product and innovation officer Carolyn Weinberg said the technology has the potential to fundamentally change how financial markets process transactions, describing the initiative as bringing the records behind fund activity on-chain. Emily Portney, Global Head of Asset Servicing at BNY, said the platform integrates tokenization, distribution and custody in a single global infrastructure.
The bank said the platform is designed to reduce data duplication across intermediaries, shorten settlement cycles and support markets that operate continuously around the clock. BNY joins a number of large custodians and asset managers that have invested in blockchain infrastructure for fund servicing.
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