BNY Adds Blockchain Capabilities to Transfer Agency Business

Banking giant BNY is bringing blockchain technology to its transfer agency business.

The bank on Wednesday (July 29) unveiled its digital transfer agency (TA) capabilities, designed to address a growing set of client needs by extending BNY’s TA services to support digitally native funds as well as traditional asset funds.

“With this new capability, BNY is helping power the future of financial markets through digital market infrastructure with a global, scalable platform that integrates tokenization, distribution, and custody,” Emily Portney, BNY’s global head of asset servicing, said in a news release. “We are excited to support clients as they expand into new asset classes, enabling true on-chain mobility of real-world assets, with legal representation of the fund’s books and records on a public blockchain.”

The release noted that when tokenized funds are issued on a blockchain from the beginning, the legal title and economic value of the funds exist on-chain, and do not “remain in the mirror-token or ‘digital twin’ models that have prevailed to date.”

“For fund providers, on-chain books and records underpin a unified “source of truth” across fund activity occurring on the blockchain,” BNY said. “Full on-chain asset and peer-to-peer mobility will be supported through both fiat and stablecoin subscriptions and redemptions, enabled by new mint/burn capabilities, all within the BNY ecosystem.”

The bank added that Digital TA is part of its larger integrated digital assets offering, which includes custody, stablecoin enablement, tokenized deposits and infrastructure supporting the institutional adoption of digital assets.

“Those capabilities are directly connected to the firm’s underlying TA recordkeeping infrastructure, creating a trusted source of ownership and transaction data across both traditional and digital environments,” the release said.

During an earnings call earlier this month, BNY CEO Robin Vince spoke of the opportunities presented by a more interconnected financial services world.

“BNY is not trying to reinvent itself as a cryptocurrency company,” PYMNTS wrote at the time. “It is attempting something potentially more durable: extending its existing position at the center of global capital markets into the infrastructure connecting conventional money, tokenized assets and blockchain networks.”

The bank is also not focusing on whether traditional finance or blockchain prevails, that report said, but rather hopes to “operate the bridge between them and collect revenue whenever assets cross it.”