Tokenisation news, 18 August 2026
This week: Broadridge's tokenised repo platform processed $8 trillion in July, Itaú Unibanco joined a Brazil-wide tokenisation pilot with OpenAssets, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed its planned tokenisation exemption after pushback from the White House and Wall Street.
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Key takeaways
- Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform processed $8.0 trillion in transactions during July 2026, averaging $365 billion a day — a 28% increase year-on-year.
- Itaú Unibanco, Latin America's largest lender by assets, joined a tokenisation pilot with OpenAssets under Brazil's ANBIMA, testing the issuance, trading and settlement of tokenised fixed-income securities and funds.
- The SEC delayed its "innovation exemption" for tokenised securities amid concerns from the White House and Wall Street trade group SIFMA, and cancelled a related Reg Crypto rulemaking meeting without setting a new date.
- Across all three stories, the throughline is the same: tokenised infrastructure is scaling in production even as the regulatory path around it remains unsettled in the US.
Broadridge's tokenised repo platform processes $8 trillion in a single month
Broadridge's Distributed Ledger Repo platform — a blockchain-based system for the repurchase agreements banks use daily to borrow and lend cash against securities — processed $8.0 trillion in transactions during July 2026. That works out to an average of $365 billion in daily volume, a 28% increase from the same month a year earlier. Broadridge said the growth reflects tokenised collateral moving from pilot projects into everyday institutional funding operations, rather than remaining a standalone digital-asset experiment.
The Investre take: This is the least glamorous corner of tokenisation and arguably the most telling one: repo desks don't touch anything that isn't already working at scale. Luxembourg's legal framework for DLT-based fund issuance was designed for exactly this kind of volume, which gives fund managers here a solid base to build from.
Itaú Unibanco joins ANBIMA-led pilot to test tokenised bonds and funds in Brazil
Itaú Unibanco, Latin America's largest bank by assets, has teamed up with digital-asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets to test how fixed-income securities and investment funds can be issued, traded and settled using blockchain-based record-keeping. The project sits inside a wider pilot run by ANBIMA, Brazil's financial and capital markets association. The work will also examine what rules and technical standards banks and asset managers would need before using such systems live.
The Investre take: A market-wide pilot with a major domestic bank at the table shows the industry testing whether tokenised funds can run on shared standards, not just individual proofs of concept. Luxembourg already has much of that legal groundwork in place, which is a useful starting point as those standards get worked out elsewhere.
SEC delays tokenisation exemption after Wall Street and White House pushback
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has again delayed its planned "innovation exemption," a proposal that would have made it easier for firms to issue and trade tokenised stocks, bonds and funds on blockchain systems under looser rules than usual. According to industry sources, the White House is concerned the move could complicate ongoing congressional negotiations over the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, while Wall Street trade group SIFMA argued that changes this significant should go through a full public rulemaking process rather than an exemption. The SEC also cancelled a related meeting on its broader "Reg Crypto" agenda without setting a new date.
The Investre take: Washington's hesitation is a reminder that "tokenised" and "regulated" don't automatically mean the same thing — the exemption route the SEC is backing away from would have skipped exactly the kind of public process that gives investors confidence. Luxembourg's tokenised fund framework was built through years of legislation, not a fast-track waiver, and that difference is starting to look like an advantage rather than a delay.
What this means for European fund managers
Luxembourg managers already have the legal basis via the Blockchain IV Law; an authorised Controlling Agent can maintain a fund's share register on distributed ledger without a transfer agent or CSD. Investre was the first firm authorised for this role.
Further reading: Investre becomes the first Controlling Agent under Blockchain IV Law, or The Final Block podcast.
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