Itaú Joins Brazil Tokenization Pilot for Bonds and Funds

Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest bank, is deepening its work in tokenized assets through a pilot with digital-asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets. The project is being run by ANBIMA, Brazil’s financial and capital markets association, and will test tokenized fixed-income securities and investment funds.

The pilot matters because it brings one of Latin America’s most significant banking institutions into a regulated experiment around blockchain-based market infrastructure. According to the companies, the work will examine how assets can be issued, traded and settled using distributed-ledger technology, while also looking at the rules and technical standards banks and asset managers would need.

Itaú’s participation gives the initiative added weight. The São Paulo-based lender is Latin America’s largest bank by assets, with more than $562 billion in total assets, according to S&P Global data cited by CoinDesk.

Brazil has become an active market for tokenization trials. CoinDesk noted recent projects involving debt, receivables, fixed-income instruments and equities, including efforts by VERT Capital and Mercado Bitcoin. Tokenization has also reached smaller real-economy assets in Brazil, including an initiative involving dairy cows connected to infrastructure tied to the B3 exchange.

This is not Itaú’s first move in the area. The bank was among the institutions selected by Brazil’s central bank in 2023 for the Drex pilot, which tested blockchain-based transactions involving tokenized money and assets. OpenAssets, meanwhile, raised $10 million last year to build tokenization infrastructure, with backing from investors including Valor Capital Group, Tether and members of the family that founded Itaú Unibanco.