Franklin Templeton to Establish Singapore’s First Tokenized Fund for Retail Investors

Franklin Templeton, a $1.5 trillion asset manager, has secured clearance from the Monetary Authority of Singapore to establish the Franklin OnChain U.S. Dollar Short-Term Money Market Fund. Notably, this marks a major milestone, presenting the fund as Singapore’s first tokenized fund available to retail investors. In particular, the fund is open with a minimum investment as low as $20. This significantly lowers the barrier to entry for everyday investors seeking exposure to money market instruments through blockchain technology. Notably, the fund will be structured under the Franklin Templeton Investments Variable Capital Company and will issue shares via Franklin Templeton’s proprietary blockchain-integrated transfer agency platform. This platform enhances transparency, security, and operational efficiency. The investment strategy aligns with the firm’s Luxembourg-based fund, which currently manages $1.76 billion in assets. The fund focuses on high-quality, short-term U.S. dollar-denominated securities issued globally. Competing With Institutions, But with Retail in Mind While other tokenized financial products like VanEck’s VBILL have minimum investment thresholds as high as $100,000 to $1 million, Franklin Templeton is taking a different route by targeting the retail segment directly. The move highlights the growing push to democratize access to institutional-grade financial instruments. Meanwhile, Franklin Templeton’s latest push aligns with its broader digital asset strategy. The company has been active in blockchain innovation since 2018. In 2021, it launched the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to record share ownership on a public blockchain. The firm is also a key participant in Project Guardian, an initiative by MAS that explores using asset tokenization to improve market liquidity and operational efficiency. More recently, Franklin Templeton partnered with the Arbitrum Foundation to tokenize U.S. Treasury offerings. The ArbitrumDAO approved 35% of allocations to the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX), which is now tokenized as BENJI. Tokenization Market Poised for Explosive Growth The launch comes amid growing optimism about the tokenization of real-world assets. A joint report by Boston Consulting Group and Ripple projects that the global asset tokenization market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033. With the rising demand for tokenized financial products, Franklin Templeton’s latest offering could influence other traditional asset managers to follow. On Monday, VanEck launched its first tokenized U.S. Treasury fund in partnership with Securitize. The fund is open to only qualified investors and supports on-chain USDC subscriptions. With the offering, VanEck joins institutions like BlackRock and Franklin in advancing tokenization.