OMFIF on Tokenised Money Funds
U.K. think tank and lobbying organization OMFIF posted a piece titled, "Which is the fairest of all tokenised monies?" They write, "As markets explore tokenised deposits and stablecoins, tokenised money market fund shares deserve equal attention, given their high credit quality, interest-bearing nature and institutional familiarity. Not only does tokenisation bring considerable benefits to money market fund shares, it changes how institutional liquidity is managed, shifting it from redemption towards circulation. It transforms money market funds from a passive savings vehicle to a multi-purpose financial instrument." The post explains, "Money market funds have grown by more than half during the past five years to about $10tn in assets under management in the US and the European Union. In many jurisdictions, regulatory regimes have been tightened and funds are subject to greater transparency on permissible investments. Several tokenised money market funds have been launched, including Franklin Templeton's Benji and BlackRock's BUIDL." The OMFIF says, "Money market funds are normally used by institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and banks to park excess liquidity.... With tokenisation, fund shares are issued in a token format on blockchain and other distributed ledger technology platforms. The blockchain records and processes ownership of the shares. It allows the merging of fund law with securities tokenisation, converting the technical and legal character of the shares, facilitating their use in settlement and securing intraday liquidity operations without operational recourse to the transfer agent." The article adds, "The interest in tokenised money market fund shares is largely twofold. First, share transfers can occur instantly among subscribers on a delivery-without-payment and delivery-versus-delivery basis to discharge obligations. Atomic settlement enables the exchange of shares of funds denominated in different currencies for foreign exchange transactions – which may help address deficiencies in FX settlement and other cross-border transactions through transfers among domestic and non-resident fund subscribers. Second, the use of the tokenised shares as collateral rests on transferring control of the share to the lender without a title transfer, allowing the borrower to maintain economic exposure to the fund. The absence of a title transfer results in a secured lending operation instead of a conventional repurchase operation."
