Onchain Fund Records
BNY Mellon Accelerates Blockchain Strategy, Putting $8.6 Trillion Fund Records Onchain
Anonymous
Key Points
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Baillie Gifford, an Edinburgh-based asset manager with about $261 billion in assets under management, is set to be the first client to use BNY’s blockchain-based transfer agency platform to launch a fully native UK-regulated tokenized fund.
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BNY aims to deploy the platform on a private blockchain with a target date to have the system running by the end of 2026.
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Emily Portney, BNY’s Global Head of Asset Servicing, says trillions of dollars will continue to use the bank’s existing rails for years, indicating a staged transition rather than an abrupt shift to on-chain records.
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BNY has already begun testing the approach with after-hours Treasury transactions involving stablecoin issuers earlier this year as part of its broader digital asset push.
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Industry framing describes the project as one of Wall Street’s—indeed, one of the largest—blockchain deployments in finance.
BNY, the world's largest custodian bank, is moving its $8.6 trillion transfer agency business onto a blockchain, putting fund ownership records and investor transactions on a shared digital ledger for the first time, according to CoinDesk. The platform covers 7.6 million accounts and represents one of the biggest blockchain deployments in Wall Street history.
Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, and Dreyfus are already lined up to use the new system, per Yahoo Finance. Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based manager with roughly $261 billion in assets, is set to launch the first fully native, UK-regulated tokenized fund on the platform.
How BNY's Blockchain Transfer Agency Actually Works
A transfer agency keeps track of who owns shares in a fund and records every buy or sell transaction. Right now, those records live in separate systems that must be constantly checked against each other. BNY's new platform puts all of that data on one shared, on-chain ledger, cutting the need for manual reconciliation, according to PYMNTS.
BNY's chief product and innovation officer, Carolyn Weinberg, says digitizing book and records on-chain can improve efficiency and transparency by reducing fragmented data. The bank will run the digital platform alongside its traditional transfer agency service — not replace it — for years to come, per CoinDesk.
Baillie Gifford Leads the First Wave of Clients
Baillie Gifford will be the first client to go live, launching a tokenized fund that is fully regulated under UK rules. BlackRock and Dreyfus are also preparing to issue tokenized products on the same infrastructure, according to Yahoo Finance. BNY says early tokenized funds are already using the platform in testing.
BNY targets a private blockchain and aims to have the full system running by the end of 2026, according to Tron Weekly. The bank has already tested after-hours Treasury transactions using stablecoins earlier this year as part of its broader digital asset push.
A Staged Shift, Not an Overnight Switch
Emily Portney, BNY's Global Head of Asset Servicing, is clear that trillions of dollars will keep using the bank's existing rails for years. This is a staged transition, not a hard cutover. The old system stays in place while the new one builds a track record with the largest institutional clients first.
BNY holds more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration overall, according to CoinDesk. Moving even a slice of that on-chain would dwarf any prior blockchain project in traditional finance, signaling a serious long-term bet on tokenized fund infrastructure.
Regulatory Tailwinds Push the Tokenization Wave Forward
BNY's move comes as regulators in both the EU and UK warm up to digital assets. The EU's MiCA framework has given banks a clearer legal path to offer crypto and tokenized asset services. That regulatory progress is a key reason large institutions feel confident enough to commit real assets to on-chain systems now, per PYMNTS.
The promise of the technology is faster settlement and markets that never close. Traditional fund settlement can take one to two days. On-chain records can, in theory, settle transactions in seconds at any hour. BNY is betting that speed and transparency will make the switch worth the years of work ahead, according to Tron Weekly.
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