BNY, one of the world’s largest custodian banks, is taking a major step toward blockchain-based financial infrastructure by moving fund ownership records onchain.
The New York-based institution will launch a blockchain-based version of its transfer agency business, which manages fund ownership records and investor transactions, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.
“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, reportedly said.
The move follows BNY’s broader digital asset expansion, including its European regulatory progress under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, as the bank positions itself for the next phase of institutional blockchain adoption.
What are transfer agency records?
Transfer agents are financial service providers that maintain official records of who owns shares in investment funds. They handle tasks such as processing investor transactions, issuing and redeeming fund shares, updating ownership records and supporting communication between funds and investors.
These records form part of the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that allows investment funds to operate. Traditionally, ownership information is stored across multiple systems used by fund managers, custodians and other market participants, requiring frequent reconciliation.
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According to the report, BNY’s transfer agent services cover roughly $8.6 trillion in assets across 7.6 million accounts. The company, which oversees more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration, will reportedly maintain its traditional transfer agency operations alongside the new digital platform.
Baillie Gifford among early users for tokenized funds
By moving transfer agency records onchain, BNY aims to create a shared source of information for market participants, reducing reliance on separate databases and manual reconciliation processes.
Early users of BNY’s digital transfer agency reportedly include Edinburgh, Scotland-based asset manager Baillie Gifford, which plans to use the platform for what it described as the first “fully native” United Kingdom-regulated tokenized fund. BlackRock and BNY Dreyfus money market fund and cash management business are also expected to use the service for upcoming tokenized funds.
The firm has roughly $261 billion in assets under management, according to its website.
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“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, said. “We agree that this is the source of truth when people are dealing with the asset that this is monitoring,” the executive said.
BNY has not disclosed which blockchain network will support the new platform. Cointelegraph approached the company for comment regarding the report but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
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