BNY is launching a blockchain-based transfer agency platform, moving $8.6 trillion in fund ownership records onchain. Early users include Baillie Gifford, BlackRock, and BNY Dreyfus.
BNY is bringing its transfer agency business onto a blockchain, moving the official records of who owns shares in investment funds onchain. The New York-based custodian bank will launch a blockchain-based version of the service, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
Transfer agents maintain the books and records for fund investors. They process transactions, issue and redeem shares, and update ownership data. Traditionally, this information lives across multiple systems used by fund managers and custodians. Reconciling those systems is frequent and manual.
“We think of BNY as modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing the books and records on-chain,” Carolyn Weinberg, BNY’s chief product and innovation officer, told the FT.
BNY’s transfer agent services cover roughly $8.6 trillion in assets across 7.6 million accounts, the report said. The bank, which oversees more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration, will keep its traditional transfer agency running alongside the new digital platform.
Early users include Edinburgh-based asset manager Baillie Gifford. It plans to use the platform for what it described as the first “fully native” UK-regulated tokenized fund. BlackRock and BNY’s Dreyfus money market fund and cash management business are also expected to use the service for upcoming tokenized funds.
“What we have in the blockchain is a shared source of record-keeping between the participants,” Theo Golden, Baillie Gifford’s head of digital assets, told the FT. “We agree that this is the source of truth when people are dealing with the asset that this is monitoring.”
BNY has not disclosed which blockchain network will support the platform. The bank’s broader digital asset expansion includes regulatory progress under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, the FT reported.
In a separate development, USDC issuer Circle is acquiring nearly 1,000 blockchain patents from IBM. The technology sector continues adapting legacy infrastructure for blockchain settlement. IBM’s stock page carries an Alpha Score of 37/100, labeled Mixed.
Drafted by a large language model from the source reporting linked above, then screened by automated publishing checks. It is not read by a journalist before publication. Some articles cite our Alpha Score. Verify prices and figures against the original source. Educational coverage, not personalized advice.