Aviva Invests £50 Million in Tokenized Shares of £22 Billion Liquidity Fund
Key Facts
Aviva Investors and Ripple announced on October 26 the launch of a tokenized share class for the Aviva Investors Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger network. Aviva invested £50 million in the new class, while its investments across its two tokenized classes have exceeded £86 million, according to a Ripple statement. The fund has total assets of about £22 billion, making it the company’s largest, and that figure does not represent the assets of the tokenized class alone. The move marks Aviva Investors’ second tokenization of an existing fund. The company launched a tokenized class of its dollar liquidity fund in July 2026.
The fund, registered in Ireland and subject to the «UCITS» framework, targets low-risk returns and daily liquidity. It pursues these objectives by investing in high-quality, short-term debt instruments denominated in British pounds sterling. Aviva said the tokenized class retains the investment objective, risk profile, liquidity characteristics and regulatory protections of the traditional fund. The fund was first launched in 2002, according to Ripple’s statement. “We believe tokenized funds can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to better client outcomes,” said Mark Versey, chief executive of Aviva Investors.
The issuance uses a “digital twin” model, which allows holdings to be represented on-chain while keeping the existing fund structure off-chain. The fund’s assets remain with its custodian, BNY Mellon, according to a Ripple statement. The class is available to eligible investors with digital wallets. The launch is supported by Zodia Custody, a regulated institutional digital-asset custodian, and Liquido, a digital infrastructure platform that enables the tokenization and trading of real-world assets. This infrastructure adds a digital representation of the shares while the fund’s assets remain in the custody of its traditional custodian.
The European Central Bank estimated the global tokenized money market fund market at about €7 billion in a report published in April 2026. It put the estimate for funds domiciled in the European Union at about €725 million. The bank said the market value of tokenized money market funds grew by about 110% in 2025, compared with a 49% increase for stablecoins and an 11% decline for money market funds subject to «MMFR» regulation over the same period. The comparison places tokenized funds among the fastest-growing categories that year. However, the bank said the market’s eventual impact on financial stability will depend on its development and interaction with traditional financial markets.
The European Central Bank says tokenization could enable faster settlement and near-continuous, round-the-clock availability, and could also open the door to using tokens as collateral. But it warned that it could exacerbate liquidity mismatch risks and operational vulnerabilities. The bank added that allowing trading requests around the clock does not necessarily mean redemptions will be completed immediately, as redemption may be delayed or require off-chain steps during regular business hours. In the United States, Reuters reported on February 23, 2026, that the Securities and Exchange Commission granted WisdomTree a special exemption allowing intraday trading in tokenized shares of a money market fund. The SEC said the arrangement could speed up settlement and make access easier for retail investors.
A Ripple statement said the XRP Ledger has processed more than 4 billion transactions since 2012, supports nearly 8 million active wallets and is operated by more than 130 independent validators. In trading, L7 data showed Aviva’s «AVVIY» shares closed at 19.17 on October 23, 2026. In the United Kingdom, a government report recommended prioritizing a first pilot issuance of government «DIGIT» bonds no later than the first quarter of 2027. The report called for the pilot to demonstrate actual secondary-market trading. It also said tokenized assets accounted for 0.01% of global investable assets in 2025, with their value growing 300% that year.