BNP Paribas Asset Management has issued units of a France-registered tokenised money market fund using the Ethereum blockchain, The Block reported on Feb. 20 local time.

The issuance was carried out through BNP Paribas' in-house platform, AssetFoundry. Holding and transferring the tokenised units is based on a permissioned access approach that allows only authorised eligible participants under regulatory requirements. BNP Paribas Asset Management handled the fund issuance, and BNP Paribas Securities Services serves as transfer agent and dealer.

The company described the project as a one-off internal group experiment within a controlled regulatory environment using public blockchain infrastructure. It added that the focus is on validating the entire process, from issuance to transfer agency, tokenisation and connection to a public blockchain.

Edouard Legrand (에두아르 르그랑), chief digital and data officer at BNP Paribas Asset Management, said the second tokenised issuance of a money market fund using public blockchain infrastructure is part of an effort to explore whether tokenisation can contribute to operational efficiency and improved security within a regulatory framework.

BNP Paribas previously issued a native tokenised money market fund last year in cooperation with the Allfunds blockchain. It is also participating in an experiment to connect the SWIFT global financial messaging network to the Ethereum Layer 2 Linea.