Aviva places 50 million pounds in tokenized shares on the XRP Ledger

A new class of sterling shares

Aviva Investors and Ripple announced on 26 October 2026 a tokenized share class for the Sterling Liquidity Fund. Aviva invested 50 million pounds, equivalent to 66 million dollars according to the manager’s press release. The transaction concerns a share category of this money market fund, not the conversion of its entire portfolio into crypto‑assets. The amount committed must therefore be distinguished from the roughly 22 billion pounds managed by the fund as a whole.

The offering retains the characteristics of the conventional fund: investment objective, risk profile, liquidity and regulatory protections. The assets are short‑term debt instruments denominated in sterling. The manager describes daily liquidity; this indication does not constitute a guarantee of return or capital. Its documentation notes that the share value can fluctuate and that a money market fund is not the same as a bank deposit.

A digital representation, assets kept off‑chain

The system relies on a “digital twin”. The blockchain records the holding of the shares without replacing the fund that exists off‑chain. A registration in a distributed ledger and the holding of the underlying financial instruments thus fulfill different functions. The token serves as a digital representation; it does not by itself turn the portfolio’s securities into native network assets. The announced access is limited to eligible investors who have a digital wallet.

The Bank of New York Mellon holds the fund’s assets. Komainu provides custody of digital assets and Licuido supplies its tokenization infrastructure. This split distinguishes the custody of financial assets from that of tokens and the tools used to manage them. The press release does not describe an unconditional opening to all XRP holders, nor unrestricted trading of the shares on a public order book.

The extension of the partnership with Ripple

The collaboration was first presented on 11 February 2026. Ripple then said it would support Aviva Investors in tokenizing traditional fund structures, with work planned over the long term. The sterling launch gives a new application to this partnership. It concerns the issuance and management of a share representation on the XRP Ledger, within a regulated financial offering, rather than the creation of a new currency for the general public.

The XRP Ledger documentation distinguishes tokens issued on the network from XRP, its native asset. Tokens can represent different forms of value; their meaning depends on the issuer and the underlying asset. In Aviva’s case, they represent fund shares. Using the same ledger therefore does not make these shares interchangeable with XRP and does not allow one to infer any movement in XRP’s price from this single launch.