Franklin Templeton and DigiFT expand institutional tokenisation partnership in Asia

DigiFT and Franklin Templeton have formed a long-term strategic partnership to expand institutional access to tokenised investment products through DigiFT’s regulated digital asset platform in Asia.

DigiFT, a regulated digital asset exchange for institutional-grade real-world assets, and Franklin Templeton, a global investment leader with $1.74 trillion in assets under management, will make Franklin Templeton’s Benji Technology Platform and related tokenisation products available to accredited and institutional investors through DigiFT’s regulated platform.

DigiFT holds Capital Markets Services and Recognised Market Operator licences from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), a regulatory standing that makes DigiFT specifically authorised to distribute regulated securities tokens to institutional investors in Singapore.

The collaboration is grounded in a shared early commitment to institutional tokenisation. Franklin Templeton launched the first US-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain to process transactions and record share ownership in 2021. DigiFT has built one of Asia's most comprehensively regulated platforms for institutional tokenised asset distribution, holding licences in both Singapore and Hong Kong, including Type 1 and Type 4 licences from the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong. This partnership brings those two track records together: DigiFT will serve as a key distributor across Asia, with both organisations committed to expanding the scope of their work together over time.

The partnership arrives at a decisive moment. In 2025, tokenised real-world assets distributed on public blockchains grew from approximately $5.5 billion to $18.6 billion, with tokenised US government securities emerging as the leading institutional category. This growth underscores a structural inefficiency in digital markets, where institutional capital is frequently held in non‑yielding stablecoins or on‑exchange balances, while traditional fund infrastructure remains constrained by defined settlement cycles. The Benji Technology Platform and its related tokenisation products are designed to address this gap by supporting the tokenisation of US government securities strategies that accrue yield continuously, including intraday accrual, through Franklin Templeton's patent‑pending Intraday Yield mechanism. It also supports 24/7 transferability between permissioned wallets and near‑instant on‑chain settlement, enabling a range of potential institutional treasury management, payment and settlement use cases, and deployable off‑exchange collateral for institutional market participants.

Henry Zhang, founder and group CEO of DigiFT, said: "DigiFT was built with a specific conviction: that institutional investors deserve access to the world's best on-chain financial instruments, through a platform that meets the regulatory standard they require. The partnership with Franklin Templeton reflects that conviction and marks the beginning of a long-term strategic collaboration to bring tokenised solutions to market."

Chetan Karkhanis, senior vice president for digital asset partnership development at Franklin Templeton, said: "The partners we choose reflect our long-term commitment, not just our near-term distribution objectives towards bringing the benefits of blockchain and tokenisation to the industry. DigiFT's leadership and innovative edge, together with the institutional infrastructure they have built, provides a strong foundation for this partnership. This marks the beginning of what we expect to be an expanding and enduring collaboration."

Re-disseminated by Wealth and Society