Ripple expanded its institutional reach as Aviva, a British asset manager, added a tokenized fund share class to the XRP Ledger. Aviva invested £50 million ($66 million) in a blockchain-based share class of its Sterling Liquidity Fund, bringing its combined investments across two XRP Ledger offerings to more than £86 million ($116 million).
The tokenized share class represents a digital version of Aviva's Sterling Liquidity Fund, which manages approximately £22 billion ($29 billion) in assets. The £50 million investment accounts for roughly 0.23% of the existing fund's assets. The fund invests in high-grade sterling-denominated short-term debt instruments and offers daily liquidity through both conventional infrastructure and its new tokenized version.
This latest offering follows Aviva's first tokenized money market fund launch in July, when the asset manager introduced an XRP Ledger-based share class for its US Dollar Liquidity Fund. Mark Versey, CEO of Aviva Investors, stated that "tokenised funds can increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes" and indicated the company intends to explore additional opportunities with Ripple.
The new issuance uses the XRP Ledger's Multi-Purpose Token standard, which allows financial institutions to define how digital assets can be held, transferred, and recovered. The tokenized offering includes restrictions requiring authorized holders, giving the issuer clawback capabilities under specified circumstances, and disabling transfers between investors. These controls allow Aviva to maintain ownership oversight and compliance while leveraging blockchain infrastructure for issuance and redemption.
BNY Mellon serves as custodian of the underlying fund assets, while Komainu provides digital asset custody support and Licuido supplies tokenization infrastructure.
XRP Demand Remains Unclear
While increased network use could generate additional transactional demand for XRP through network fees and reserve requirements, the direct impact on the cryptocurrency remains limited. Standard transaction fees are extremely small, and Aviva's investments in tokenized fund shares do not represent equivalent purchases of XRP. The network's ability to attract further institutional issuances, increase settlement activity, and develop additional liquidity applications will determine whether these deployments create more substantial demand for the token.
Ripple Launches Corporate Treasury Expansion
Separately, Ripple introduced new capabilities for its corporate treasury platform, targeting businesses seeking to manage liquidity and payments beyond traditional banking hours. The expansion includes a product called 24/7 Returns, which allows eligible corporate clients to generate returns on qualifying digital assets, including Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, held in Ripple wallets.
The service enables companies to earn returns on operating cash that would otherwise remain idle overnight, on weekends, and on public holidays. Ripple also introduced an orchestration layer that integrates its GSmart artificial intelligence capabilities with cash forecasting, reconciliation, liquidity management, and payment execution.
This expansion builds on Ripple's $1 billion acquisition of treasury management provider GTreasury in October 2025. Ripple identified American Airlines, Subway, Adecco, Kingfisher, Christian Louboutin, and Trax among businesses served by its treasury platform, though the announcement did not confirm these companies are participating in the new returns program.
According to the Association for Financial Professionals' 2026 Liquidity Survey, just 1% of surveyed organizations were already using or piloting stablecoins or tokenized products, with another 9% actively exploring them. However, 86% of respondents indicated they would consider real-time money market funds if they complied with their investment policies.
