For many traditional financial players, the concept of a boardroom meeting focused on blockchain and digital assets in 2021 would have seemed like a fever dream, if fever dreams involved lengthy infrastructure explanations.
Today, Tier-1 banks and other major institutions across the globe are embracing the new technology, working with crypto-native firms to expand product offerings and meet investor demand.
At Janus Henderson, the innovation team’s strategy is all about improving infrastructure and collaborating with crypto-native firms to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralised finance.
“Blockchain has the chance to make huge waves in financial services. Fundamentally, the system today is operating on fairly old infrastructure,” Patrik Björklund, innovation strategist at Janus Henderson, said. “Settlement, reconciliation, custody, these can all be improved with blockchain technology.”
With approximately $493 billion in assets under management, more than 2,000 employees and offices in 25 cities worldwide, Janus Henderson is one of the bigger players in the market.
“We’re set to become a leader in the space,” Björklund said.
TradFi areas primed for optimisation
As the rules around implementing digital assets become clearer in the UK, large firms are beginning to move forward with confidence. During UK FinTech Week, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced plans to expand its work on tokenised finance, outlining guidelines for more structured testing of tokenised fund and payments models.
The UK government is also working to establish a single, coherent framework for both traditional and tokenised payments, including both stablecoins and tokenised deposits.
The effect of that clarity is being felt across the market, perhaps most significantly in the payments sector, where increased adoption of stablecoins means that transferring US dollars across borders comes at a very low cost.
However, Björklund noted other areas where there is greater scope for development. He highlighted fixed income, where, while some aspects of the market operate with high levels of efficiency, others don’t reach the same standard.
“When you look at areas like SMEs and consumer lending, there are plenty of inefficiencies in how these markets operate today that ultimately create drag on performance — both for the investors providing capital and for the lenders deploying it,” he said. “Blockchain technology offers a meaningful opportunity to address several of those at once. For us, we’re looking at the market from both an investment and an internal perspective, assessing how we can make our own systems more efficient.”
Partnerships and collaborations
To successfully bridge the gap between traditional and decentralised finance, mergers and acquisitions and strategic relationships between traditional institutions and crypto-native firms is crucial.
Janus Henderson partnered with Centrifuge, a tokenisation platform for asset managers to digitise, manage and distribute funds on-chain, in September 2024. At the time, the firm took over management of Anemoy’s Liquid Treasury Fund, a fully on-chain, tokenised fund issued on Centrifuge’s public blockchain that provided investors with direct access to short-term US Treasury bills.
In March 2025, the fund was assigned an AA+f / S1+ fund credit quality rating from S&P Global Ratings. At the time it was the highest rating given to any tokenised fund, and a further indication of the increasing institutionalisation of tokenised fund solutions.
Since then, the firm has also brought its flagship AAA CLO Strategy, JAAA, fully on-chain and launched SPXA, the first licensed S&P 500® index fund token.
“When we began our relationship with Centrifuge, they had funding for their ecosystem but there was a need for a trusted institutional asset manager to come in and manage assets, working with clients and individuals as they were being integrated into the ecosystem,” Björklund said.
“For traditional financial institutions such as ourselves, we can bring institutional credibility to the decentralised finance space. We are going to start seeing numerous players, for example large traditional custodians, start to not only launch but also begin to ramp up efforts in digital asset custody. As the convergence of TradFi and DeFi continues we’re also expecting to see strategic shifts and merger and acquisition activity, some of which is already starting to occur.”
As regulatory progress continues, more traditional players are set to move into the space.
Evolving attitudes
The perception of the digital assets industry has considerably shifted in last six months. At Janus Henderson, client demand for digital asset products has been rapidly growing.
“The frequency of client conversations has noticeably ramped up,” Björklund said. “It’s not always the case that the client is interested in purchasing a tokenised version of a fund today, but clients are very interested in hearing about what we’re doing in the space and getting guidance on how they should be approaching it so they’re in a strong position when the time comes to make a move.”
Any scepticism or a lack of understanding, which was common to encounter as recently as last year, has significantly diminished. However, for investors poised to enter the space, the move may not be as smooth as it first appears.
“If they do want to purchase a tokenised version of a fund, it’s not always a simple process for those traditional investors,” he added. “Someone who already operates in the blockchain ecosystem can move around easily once they’re in but someone who is more traditional in their set-up will need to jump through a few hurdles.”
And, while many are taking their first steps into the new era of financial services, Björklund highlighted that widespread institutional adoption may be further down the line than some expect.
“The timeline here is relatively uncertain. We do think that this is going to happen, but is it going to happen in two years or 10 years, no one can say for sure.”
There are, however, signs illustrating the direction of travel for the industry. Increasingly positive statements from the UK government and FCA, as well as from overseas regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all offer a strong indication that traditional financial players are moving to embrace tokenisation and digital assets.
Internal collaboration
As client interest in digital assets grows, so too has the interest from other departments within Janus Henderson.
“We spend a lot of time on internal education related to both our artificial intelligence (AI) transformation and blockchain readiness as part of our broader innovation effort. Launching that proactive educational effort has been instrumental in driving internal interest,” Björklund said. “We speak to our colleagues about what tokenisation means, what we’re doing in the space and what the implications of blockchain might be more broadly.”
These conversations are helpful in keeping colleagues in other departments up to speed, he said, but also avoid the innovation team getting stuck inside an echo chamber.
“It’s great to have that two-way dialog, because sitting in our seats, looking at it from a strategic building perspective, there are a lot of other implications which touch other parts of our business. Hearing from colleagues in those other departments on how the blockchain could it be used offers a whole other perspective. You need to hear from all parts of the business to formulate a successful strategy.”
Looking ahead
While the timeline for institutional adoption may be uncertain, the innovation team will continue to push forward integration of digital assets across Janus Henderson and engage with clients who are interested in the new technology.
“We have reached a point where we could tokenise a range of our products today, but we will only do so where there is a clear benefit to the client — we are not doing this for the sake of it,” Björklund said. “Every step we take has to make sense for our clients first, and that’s what is shaping our roadmap, as it has so far with our tokenization efforts for DeFi-native clients.”The long-term goal? A fully tokenised asset with digital backing from the underlying security all the way through the management of the portfolio.
“Our approach is to think of institutional adoption as a pipeline: We are confident the institutional transition to digital assets is coming and likely at an accelerated rate, but when it happens will be determined by the regulator and how quickly the infrastructure can come together,” he added. “The timeline may be uncertain, but we know what direction we are heading in.”
