Archax, the first FCA-regulated digital securities exchange, has partnered with Federated Hermes to offer two UCITS Money Market Funds (MMFs) in tokenised form.
The collaboration marks the first time Federated Hermes has engaged with a digital assets initiative outside the US.
“Unlocking new demand for TradFi products through the use of blockchain and tokenisation is a key strand of the Archax strategy around real-world assets,” said Graham Rodford, CEO and co-founder of Archax.
“This partnership does just that, but also unlocks innovative new use cases for money market funds once tokenised, such as the ability to use them as collateral and transfer value between parties, as a type of yield-bearing, digital ‘currency’.”
The Federated Hermes Short-Term Sterling Prime Fund and the Federated Hermes Short-Term US Prime Fund have been listed on the Archax platform, enabling investors to access them through beneficial ownership tokens.
Issued by Archax, these tokens represent holdings in the underlying UCITS funds and are available across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon and Algorand.
“As one of the world’s longest-standing money market managers, we are excited to bring tokenised money market funds as an alternative to investors already holding assets on blockchains,” said Deborah Cunningham, CFA, chief investment officer for global liquidity markets.
“This provides the potential to access the stability and yield characteristics typically associated with money market funds, without needing to move assets off-chain.”
The collaboration follows Federated Hermes’ involvement in an initiative with BNY and Goldman Sachs, which explored the use of blockchain technology to record customer ownership of select money market funds.
