The launch is a step forward in the application of blockchain technology for the investment funds industry.
,The Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund is available to institutional investors across France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland.
,It will operate under the firm’s newly created Franklin Templeton OnChain Funds brand and has been built on the Stellar public blockchain and will use Franklin Templeton’s blockchain-enabled transfer agency platform.
,According to the asset manager, the tokenised fund offers greater transparency, security, accuracy and immediacy.
,After an initial fanfare, blockchain technology has struggled to find a suitable application in the funds industry. Various proof of concepts have not always been deployed at scale.
,However, fund tokenisation, whereby the fund can be represented on a blockchain, has emerged as the most compelling use case.
,Not only does tokenisation offer operational and security benefits, it theoretically makes illiquid asset classes more accessible to a wider range of investors via fractional shares.
,Franklin Templeton has a track record in the tokenisation market – in April 2021, it launched the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund, described as the first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain for transaciton processing and share ownership recording.
