Aviva Investors Tokenizes £22B Sterling Liquidity Fund Share Class on XRPL

Aviva Investors put a slice of its largest fund onchain on Monday. The asset manager, the investment arm of UK insurer Aviva, launched a tokenized share class of its Sterling (GBP) Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger, working with Ripple. The fund holds about £22 billion ($29.4 billion) in assets under management.

Aviva put £50 million ($66.7 million) into the new share class, according to the announcement from Aviva Investors and Ripple, which was published on Ripple's site. Ripple also flagged the launch in a post on X.

View the post on X

Aviva's two tokenized money market fund share classes now hold more than £86 million combined. Reported dollar conversions of that total range from $114.8 million to $116 million, so treat the USD figure as approximate. The first share class, for the USD Liquidity Fund, went live on the XRPL on July 29 with approval from the Central Bank of Ireland.

How the structure works

The Sterling Liquidity Fund dates to 2002. It is domiciled in Ireland, runs as a UCITS money market fund, buys high-grade short-term sterling debt and offers daily liquidity. The tokenized version uses a "digital twin" model: holdings are represented onchain while the fund itself keeps operating offchain. Investors need an eligible digital wallet.

BNY Mellon holds the fund's assets. Komainu is the custodian, and Licuido supplied the digital infrastructure platform. Aviva said the tokenized shares carry the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections as the conventional fund.

"We believe tokenized funds can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes,"

Mark Versey, CEO of Aviva Investors

Ripple's Nigel Khakoo framed it as a settlement story: "Markets are moving to 24/7 access and settlement is moving to real-time, always-on rails."

Why it matters

For traders, this is not a new yield trade. It is plumbing. A £22 billion fund is a serious balance sheet to attach to a public ledger, even if Aviva's own stake in the tokenized class is £50 million so far. The digital twin design also means the onchain piece is a representation layer, not a rebuild of the fund.

The launch extends a relationship that began in February, when Ripple said Aviva was its first European investment management partner. Two share classes in roughly three months looks like a repeatable template, and the move puts Aviva Investors among Europe's largest providers of tokenized money market funds.

It lands as Ripple pushes further into regulated finance. Last week it urged the SEC to finalize Regulation Crypto Assets, and earlier this month Cross River Bank embedded RLUSD in its core banking system. The XRPL, per figures cited in coverage of the launch, has processed more than 4 billion transactions since 2012, with nearly 8 million active wallets and 130+ independent validators.

There is no direct XRP token angle here. The takeaway is institutional adoption of the ledger, not a near-term catalyst.