Franklin Templeton has received approval from Luxembourg’s financial regulator to launch a tokenised UCITS fund on a public blockchain.
In what would be a first for the region, the UCITS fund received the greenlight from the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) and is scheduled for launch over the next few months.
Shares in the fund will be issued using Franklin’s blockchain-enabled transfer agency platform, which aims to offer transparency, security, accuracy and immediacy through blockchain technology.
Franklin Templeton’s Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and industry advisory services, said: “Disruptive technology and innovation in financial services is reshaping the industry and changing the fundamental rules for how to attract, secure, and serve clients.
“We believe that in the future, there may be opportunities to create other tokenised financial products, including interoperability with other digital assets and blockchain native facilities. We are committed to continuing to explore these opportunities as part of our broader digital assets strategy.”
In April 2021, Franklin Templeton introduced the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund, the first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain for transaction processing and share ownership recording.
In 2023, structured product specialist Backed Finance entered the market with the Backed CSPX Core S&P 500 (bCSPX), a first-of-a-kind product on the ethereum blockchain tracking an ETF as an ERC-20 token.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) gave the green light for crypto listings on UK exchanges in March, giving professional investors access to the products for the first time.
