Brazil’s biggest bank Itaú joins tokenization pilot for bonds and funds

Brazil’s largest bank by market value has joined a pilot involving more than 50 financial organizations to test the issuance, trading, and settlement of tokenized fixed-income securities and investment funds.

OpenAssets said in an Aug. 11 announcement that it has started working with Itaú Unibanco on a structured use case within the tokenization pilot led by the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association, known as ANBIMA.

The project will combine OpenAssets’ digital-asset infrastructure with Itaú’s experience in Brazil’s capital markets. According to the announcement, the partners will develop technical proofs of concept and assess the architecture, standards, and compliance systems needed to support tokenized investments.

Itaú tokenization pilot covers bonds and funds

ANBIMA’s program will examine the full lifecycle of capital-market products on distributed-ledger networks, beginning with issuance before moving through trading, settlement, and asset management.

Fixed-income instruments covered by the pilot include debentures, a type of corporate debt commonly issued in Brazil. Investment funds will form the second main asset group, allowing participants to test whether blockchain-based records can work across products with different ownership, trading, and administration requirements.

Along with technical tests, OpenAssets and Itaú will advise the pilot on tokenization architecture and common standards. The companies said their work will also assess the operational and compliance rules that financial institutions would need before using the infrastructure in live markets.

ANBIMA has brought more than 50 financial and capital-market organizations into the program. According to OpenAssets, the group will study the possible efficiency gains from tokenization while documenting the technical and operational problems that may emerge during issuance, trading, and management.

Rather than creating a single tokenized product for immediate public sale, the pilot is testing how existing securities and funds could function on blockchain rails under standards accepted by banks, asset managers, and other regulated institutions.

“The initiative of OpenAssets and Itaú is designed to explore how tokenized assets can be issued, settled and managed within the frameworks and standards financial institutions require,” OpenAssets Chairman and CEO Gabor Gurbacs said.

Calling Brazil a “forward-looking” financial market, Gurbacs added that the country was a natural place to move tokenization “from exploration to production.”

Brazil has brought major banks into blockchain projects

Itaú is Latin America’s largest bank by market capitalization, based on Bloomberg data cited in the announcement as of April 30. The bank provides services to individuals and companies in Brazil and operates through other brands and business partnerships inside and outside the country.

S&P Global separately ranked Itaú as Latin America’s largest lender by assets, reporting more than $562 billion in total assets. Its participation gives ANBIMA’s project access to a bank that already handles conventional deposits, lending, investments, and capital-market services on a large scale.

As previously covered by crypto.news, Itaú is among several Brazilian institutions developing capabilities involving tokenized securities, blockchain systems, and digital custody. The March report also identified Bradesco, Santander Brasil, BTG Pactual, Banco do Brasil, Banco BV, and development bank BNDES as participants in the country’s institutional digital-asset market.

Brazilian exchange operator B3 has also examined how distributed-ledger systems could be used in capital markets, according to the same report. Bringing banks, exchanges, and infrastructure providers into related tests allows each institution to examine a different part of the securities process, from issuance and custody to trading and final settlement.

Itaú gained previous experience with tokenized finance through Drex, the digital currency and tokenization project operated by the Central Bank of Brazil. In 2023, the central bank selected Itaú and other institutions to participate in the pilot, which tested transactions involving tokenized money and financial assets.

Private companies have pursued separate projects in Brazil. In July 2025, securitization company VERT Capital disclosed plans to place as much as $1 billion of debt and receivables on the XDC Network, while Mercado Bitcoin said it intended to tokenize $200 million in fixed-income and equity products on the XRP Ledger.

Tokenization has also reached agricultural lending. In Paraná, farmers who faced limits on conventional bank credit tokenized 10 dairy cows and made the resulting assets available through infrastructure connected to the B3 exchange, according to a July report.

U.S. institutions are testing a regulated model

In the United States, financial-market companies are examining many of the same questions ANBIMA’s pilot will address, including how blockchain records connect with custody, settlement, and legally recognized ownership.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation planned limited production trades for tokenized securities from July before a full service launch targeted for October 2026, as crypto.news reported in May. Its working group includes more than 50 companies, among them BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Circle, Nasdaq, and NYSE Group.

DTCC said the service could initially cover Russell 1000 stocks, major index-tracking exchange-traded funds, and U.S. Treasury securities held in its custody. The company also said tokenized products should retain the ownership claims, investor protections, and other rights available through conventional securities infrastructure.

A December 2025 SEC no-action letter allows DTCC subsidiary DTC to provide the defined tokenization service to participating firms and their clients for three years. According to DTCC, DTC provides custody and asset servicing for more than $114 trillion in securities.

For American investors, the comparison is relevant because the SEC has treated tokenized securities as securities regardless of the technology used to issue or trade them. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has also distinguished issuer-backed tokens from third-party products that may track a share price without giving buyers direct ownership in the referenced company.

In July, U.S. transfer agents asked the SEC to prioritize issuer-approved tokenized stocks and ETFs. Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company and the Securities Transfer Association said any framework should preserve shareholder records, issuer authorization, dividend rights, voting access, transfer controls, and investor protections.

The groups warned that unaffiliated products may provide only indirect economic exposure to a security. According to their submissions, such structures can create uncertainty over custody, corporate actions, and claims during insolvency when token holders are not recorded as shareholders.

OpenAssets has raised $10 million for tokenization infrastructure

OpenAssets develops infrastructure and standards for real-world asset tokenization and sovereign digital currencies. The company said it is also contributing to open tokenization standards in collaboration with the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.

Operating previously under the Pointsville name, OpenAssets raised $10 million in 2025 to develop its tokenization technology. Valor Capital Group led the funding round, while Tether and members of Itaú Unibanco’s founding family participated as investors.