BNP Paribas tests public blockchain infrastructure for tokenization of money market funds.

PANews reported on February 24th that, according to Crowdfundinsider, BNP Paribas Asset Management has issued tokenized shares of a French registered money market fund on a public blockchain. The project, announced on February 20th, represents a significant step forward in the bank's exploration of tokenization technology, as it moves from a private ledger to the Ethereum public network.

The project employs a permissioned access model on Ethereum, allowing only pre-approved, regulated participants to hold or transfer tokenized shares, ensuring compliance with financial regulations while leveraging the transparency and security of public blockchains. This experiment integrates multiple BNP Paribas business lines: the asset management company acts as the fund issuer, the securities services department serves as the transfer agent and is responsible for wallet infrastructure and private key custody, and the corporate and investment bank's AssetFoundry platform handles the tokenization process and provides connectivity to Ethereum. This pilot builds upon previous experience with a tokenized money market fund issued using a private blockchain in Luxembourg, evaluating the technology and operational model by testing different approaches.