Aviva Investors Brings Its £22B Sterling Fund to the XRP Ledger

Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its Sterling Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger, Ripple announced on 26 October. This isn't a small pilot fund. It's the firm's largest, with about £22 billion in assets under management.

It is also the asset manager's second step onto the ledger. In July 2026 it gave its USD Liquidity Fund a tokenized share class, and the two offerings now hold more than £86 million ($116 million) between them.

A New Wrapper on a Fund That Already Works

The interesting design choice here is what Aviva Investors didn't change. The fund itself stays as it is. What's new is a share class that lets you hold your stake as a token in a digital wallet instead of only through the usual fund records.

Ripple's release calls this the "digital twin" model. The holdings are represented on-chain, while the off-chain fund structure is kept. Think of it as a second front door to the same building: the rooms, the rules and the people who run it are unchanged.

That building has been standing for a while. The conventional fund launched in 2002. It targets low-risk returns and daily liquidity by holding high-grade, short-term debt denominated in UK sterling. It's an Ireland-domiciled UCITS money market fund, which means it sits inside the European rulebook for funds sold to investors across the region.

Who Holds What Behind the Token

Putting a fund on a blockchain doesn't mean the assets live there. According to the release, all of the fund's assets are held by its custodian, The Bank of New York Mellon.

Two firms that worked on the July launch came back for this one:

• Komainu, a regulated institutional digital asset custodian
• Licuido, the tokenization platform

The new share class is open to eligible investors with digital wallets. The release doesn't spell out who counts as eligible, so treat this as a product aimed at investors who meet the fund's own entry criteria rather than an open door for anyone with an XRP Ledger wallet.

Aviva Is Its Own First Big Customer

One detail stands out in the numbers. Of the £86 million across both tokenized share classes, £50 million ($66 million) is Aviva's own money, invested in the new sterling share class. That's a meaningful commitment, but it also tells you most of the current balance comes from inside the group rather than from outside clients.

Even so, Aviva Investors says it is now one of the largest tokenized money market fund providers in Europe. The firm's case for the product is short: "We believe tokenised funds can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes."

Ripple's side of the pitch is about timing. "Markets are moving to 24/7 access and settlement is moving to real-time, always-on rails; this launch shows what that looks like in practice," said Nigel Khakoo, a senior vice president at Ripple.

Why the XRP Ledger Keeps Getting These Calls

Ripple frames the XRP Ledger as a mature network. It says the ledger has processed more than 4 billion transactions since 2012, supports nearly 8 million active wallets and is run by more than 130 independent validators.

The Aviva launch adds to a run of institutional settlement work on the network, including DriveWealth's choice of Ripple's RLUSD for settlement in Europe.

The next thing to watch is simpler than any roadmap. With Aviva's own £50 million anchoring the sterling share class, the test is whether outside investors follow it in, and how quickly that £86 million total grows from here.