Franklin Templeton has received regulatory approval to launch the first tokenized fund for retail investors in Singapore.

The Franklin OnChain US Dollar Short-Term Money Market Fund, a sub-fund under Franklin Templeton’s first variable capital company ( VCC ), was approved as an authorized scheme by the Monetary Authority of Singapore ( MAS ) on May 13.

As shares in the fund will be issued using the firm’s proprietary blockchain-integrated transfer agency platform, investors can benefit from greater transparency, security, accessibility, and efficiency enabled by blockchain technology, Franklin Templeton says. Investors will be able to access the fund with a minimum investment of US$20.

The fund aims to offer investors exposure to a portfolio of high-quality, short-term securities, consisting principally of transferable securities and money market instruments of governments and eligible securities of companies of any nation worldwide, primarily USD-denominated or hedged back into USD, thereby minimizing any currency exposure.

The fund is managed by Templeton Asset Management, which in turn has appointed Franklin Advisers as the sub-managers.

“The new fund marks a significant milestone in our commitment to harnessing the power of blockchain technology to lower the barriers to investing and deliver transformative products for investors in Asia-Pacific,” says Tariq Ahmad, head of Asia-Pacific at Franklin Templeton. “We look forward to working with more industry partners to further advance asset tokenization and build a vibrant digital asset ecosystem in Singapore.”

Franklin Templeton, through its Singapore entity, Templeton Asset Management, is an active industry partner of MAS Project Guardian, a collaborative initiative between policymakers and the financial industry that seeks to enhance liquidity and efficiency of financial markets through asset tokenization, while managing risks to financial stability and integrity.

Since 2018, the firm has been active in the digital asset ecosystem, building blockchain-based technology solutions, developing a range of investment strategies, and running node validators. In April 2021, it launched a tokenized money market fund in the United States, which is the world’s first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain to process transactions and record share ownership.