Japan’s SBI and Switzerland’s UBS have completed a pilot for the issuance and distribution of a fund token in Singapore.
In a collaboration between SBI Digital Markets and UBS Asset Management, a technical pilot was concluded for the issuance and distribution of a tokenized Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund, according to a statement.
The pilot, executed on the Ethereum network, was part of an initiative by the Monetary Authority of Singapore called «Project Guardian» which aims to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenization and decentralized finance.
SBI Digital Markets is a part of parent company SBI Digital Asset Holdings, which itself is under the umbrella of SBI Holdings, a Japanese internet-based financial giant spun off from SoftBank.
Testing Scenarios
Within the pilot, the two firms tested various scenarios between fund manager, distributor and digital asset custodian all acting as trust anchors – a term used to describe a sort of public key used for purposes such as the validation of processes. Scenarios tested include subscription and redemption of fund shares on the two firms' respective standalone technology setups with smart contracts for automation.
Moving forward, SBI Digital Markets aims to «continue working with a wider set of ecosystem participants under Project Guardian to explore possible commercialization models for tokenized funds».
«Our vision for the future of capital markets is one where institutions can leverage digitalization and efficiency-enhancing technology to unlock data and cost efficiencies,» said SBI Digital Markets CEO Winston Quek. «We will be stepping up our global partnerships to build an open and interoperable network for digital assets.»
