USDBNY Puts $8.6 Trillion Fund Recordkeeping Business on Blockchain
New system moves shareholder books onchain while preserving traditional fund infrastructure
TL;DR
- BNY introduced blockchain-based ownership records for a transfer-agency business servicing 7.6 million accounts.
- Baillie Gifford is working with BNY on a fully native, U.K.-regulated tokenized fund.
- BNY will continue operating its existing systems as conventional and blockchain-based funds coexist.
Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.
Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!
According to Financial Times, BNY disclosed on July 29, 2026, that it is moving the ownership records behind its $8.6 trillion fund transfer-agency business onto blockchain infrastructure, applying the technology to the regulated books that track fund shareholders rather than tokenizing all of the underlying assets.
Transfer agents maintain the authoritative records showing who owns shares in a fund, how many shares each investor holds and how those positions change through subscriptions, issuances, transfers, redemptions and payouts. BNY’s system is intended to create a single digital ownership record for this activity, reducing the need for financial institutions to maintain and reconcile separate versions of the same shareholder information.
“We think of BNY as modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing the books and records onchain,” Carolyn Weinberg, BNY’s chief product and innovation officer, said.
The project places blockchain technology inside a core fund-administration function rather than limiting its use to a standalone digital-asset product. BNY has more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration, making the initiative part of one of the world’s largest custody and asset-servicing operations.
Blockchain record does not mean every fund is tokenized
The migration concerns the recordkeeping layer used to document fund ownership. It does not mean every fund, security or portfolio asset connected to the business has been issued as an onchain token.
A blockchain shareholder register changes how ownership information is maintained. A tokenized fund goes further by representing the fund interests themselves as blockchain-based tokens. BNY’s infrastructure can support those products while also recording positions in funds that continue to use conventional issuance and distribution structures.
The shared ledger is designed to reduce administrative fragmentation among fund managers, custodians, distributors, transfer agents and other service providers. Those participants traditionally may hold separate records that must be compared to ensure subscriptions, redemptions and ownership balances match across their systems.
Authorized parties using a common record could instead work from a consistent ownership ledger. The initiative is intended to reduce repeated reconciliation and duplication within fund servicing, although no measured cost savings or processing improvements were included.
BNY is not immediately replacing its traditional transfer-agent infrastructure. Emily Portney, BNY’s global head of asset servicing, said the bank expects legacy systems to remain necessary because “trillions and trillions of dollars’ worth of funds” will continue operating on traditional rails.
The bank is pursuing a hybrid model in which conventional systems and blockchain-based records operate alongside one another. That structure allows BNY to continue servicing existing funds while supporting clients that introduce blockchain-native investment products.
We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!
Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.
Baillie Gifford tests native tokenized fund infrastructure
Baillie Gifford is among the asset managers preparing to use the blockchain-based service. The firm manages more than $261 billion and is working with BNY on what the companies call the first fully native, U.K.-regulated tokenized fund.
The “fully native” structure means the fund is intended to use blockchain-based issuance and recordkeeping rather than creating a token that merely mirrors an interest primarily maintained on a separate traditional ledger.
BlackRock is also expected to use BNY’s infrastructure for planned fund products. Dreyfus, BNY’s money-market and cash-management business, is expected to use the system for planned funds as well.
The infrastructure connects BNY’s recordkeeping modernization with regulated investment products instead of leaving the project as an internal technology test. Baillie Gifford was already testing or preparing to use the system when the initiative was announced.
The deployment also aligns with BNY’s work on blockchain-based tokenized deposits and other tokenized products. The bank has outlined plans to support continuous settlement of tokenized U.S. Treasury products in 2027.
That work covers separate but related components of tokenized finance, including fund ownership records, blockchain-native investment interests, tokenized deposits and settlement infrastructure.
Onchain records enter regulated financial operations
The transfer-agency project moves blockchain into the authoritative books-and-records layer behind investment funds. Investors may continue interacting through familiar subscription, redemption, statement and distribution channels while the underlying ownership records operate on new infrastructure.
The system could provide a chronological record of ownership changes that authorized participants can verify. A shared ledger also could reduce inconsistencies between records maintained by separate institutions.
BNY recognizes that the infrastructure carries operational and cybersecurity risks. Smart-contract bugs can produce unintended behavior, while bridges connecting blockchain networks can create additional attack surfaces.
A single ledger may reduce reconciliation complexity while concentrating reliance on the security, governance and availability of the network and associated software. The available information does not establish whether BNY will use public blockchain infrastructure, a permissioned network, a proprietary platform or a combination of systems.
Edwin Mata, CEO and founder of tokenization platform Brickken, has estimated that Wall Street could operate entirely on blockchain technology by 2030. That forecast is Mata’s estimate and is not BNY’s implementation target.
JPMorgan, Citi and Bank of America have also been reported as planning a shared tokenized-deposit network for the first half of 2027. That initiative is separate from BNY’s transfer-agency system and is intended partly to help traditional deposits compete with stablecoins.
BNY’s immediate step is narrower and more defined: place fund ownership books onchain, support selected tokenized products and continue using traditional infrastructure for funds that remain on existing rails.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
