Generali launches tokenized money market fund share class in $39 billion market
Key Facts
Generali Investments announced in a statement dated October 21, 2026, the launch of its first natively tokenized share class in an existing Luxembourg-based money market fund, starting with the group's internal investment activities. The fund is issued and managed by its Generali Asset Management arm, while the launch concerns a share class within it. Subscription eligibility for the new class is restricted exclusively to authorized Generali Group companies and is unavailable to investors outside those companies. The group aims to use this internal starting point to pave the way for a broader tokenized investment offering, according to its statement. Generali Investments had assets under management of 759 billion euros as of June 30, 2026, before eliminating double counting.
The share class uses distributed ledger technology to represent and record fund shares digitally, with each token representing a share in the fund, according to Generali's explanation of the mechanism. This structure allows share issuance, transfers and administration to be automated using smart contracts. Chief Operating Officer Emiliano Di Giamatteo sees money market funds as a suitable starting point for this application, given the technology's potential to broaden their distribution. Di Giamatteo also linked the choice of these funds to improving "liquidity and collateral management," among the uses he identified for the technology. The areas he cited include serving traditional markets and stablecoin issuers, linking tokenization in money market funds to both groups' liquidity and collateral management needs.
Generali's launch comes in a market where tokenized real-world assets reached 39 billion dollars by September 2026, according to data from the RWA platform cited in the company's statement. Amundi preceded it with the launch of a tokenized share class for its euro money market fund in partnership with CACEIS, according to Amundi's announcement. Amundi's project uses a hybrid distribution model combining traditional distribution channels with shares recorded on the public Ethereum network. CACEIS provides the technology and infrastructure needed to tokenize the fund's shares, according to its statement on the project. Its services also include digital wallets for investors and a subscription and redemption order platform to support share dealing through this infrastructure. On October 8, 2026, CACEIS announced an initial investment of 100 million euros by Crédit Agricole Assurances in Amundi's fund tokenized in partnership with CACEIS. The investment represents an insurer's participation in the fund, alongside Amundi's role in managing the product and CACEIS's role in providing its technical infrastructure.
At the European infrastructure level, the Eurosystem launched the Pontes platform on September 21, 2026, according to a European Central Bank statement. The platform enables wholesale tokenized asset transactions to be settled in central bank money. On the same day, the ECB announced the start of preparatory work to invest a small portion of its own funds in tokenized securities. The bank said the work aims to gain practical experience as an investor in those securities and in using distributed ledger technology. The two steps thus covered providing a means to settle tokenized asset transactions and preparing for the bank itself to invest part of its funds in securities of this kind.
In the next phase, Generali intends to extend the technology gradually to all its clients, building on its application within the group's investment activities, according to its announced plan. The company expects the technology to enable "near-instant settlement" in the future, while accelerating receipt of redemption proceeds. The benefits it is targeting include digitizing subscriptions, redemptions and related reporting as part of developing how fund shares are traded. It also aims to extend dealing windows, widening the times available to execute transactions. The company also lists improved liquidity through secondary trading among its targeted future benefits. Expanding client access forms part of this gradual path toward a broader tokenized investment offering.