Talking Heads – What next with digital assets such as tokenised securities?

Talking Heads – Stefan Brinaru, Head of Digital Assets

Daniel Morris: Hello, and welcome to the BNP Paribas Asset Management Talking Heads podcast. Every week, Talking Heads will bring you in-depth insights and analysis on the topics that really matter to investors. In this episode, we’ll be discussing tokenisation. I’m Daniel Morris, Chief Market Strategist, and I’m joined today by Stefan Brinaru, Head of Digital Assets. Welcome Stefan, and thanks for joining me.

Stefan Brinaru: Thank you, Daniel.

DM: Most of our listeners have heard the word cryptocurrencies and may have varying degrees of knowledge about it. It’s safe to say that cryptocurrencies are an example of digital assets more broadly. And in this podcast, we’re going to be talking about a different type of digital asset: security tokens. Let’s start with the basics. Could you help us out and define exactly what tokenisation is?

SB: There are several types of digital assets. We have cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, ethereum. We have also securitised tokens – traditional securities wrapped within this new technology. Tokens are circulating on a network called blockchain. We can benefit from all the advantages of this technology: speed, transparency, faster settlement.

DM: I imagine this is a brand-new world for a lot of asset managers. Maybe tell us about what BNP Paribas Asset Management has done over the last three or four years.

SB: The first time we discussed blockchain within BNP Paribas Asset Management was 2018. A real transaction was done in 2022 with an issuer – EDF, the French electricity producer. This bond was tokenised. Tokenisation is a new way to digitise assets. Now we have dematerialised securities. The first transaction took more than two years, and the second one only six months, so we are progressing.

An interesting point with these technologies that we can include data directly in the token. We’ve included ESG data in a bond issued by EDF. We have the GPS coordinates of the solar panel that has been financed with this issuance. It demonstrates that this technology can be very powerful in terms of transparency.

In 2024 we managed transactions using a central bank digital currency, issued by the Banque de France and the Bundesbank. And we’ve invested in the first digital bond issued by a sovereign state within the European Union, which was the Republic of Slovenia. And now we are trying to move towards money market fund tokenisation products.

DM: That’s very interesting. Can you tell us bit more about the money market fund tokenisation project?

SB: The idea here is to issue shares under this digital format to benefit from all the advantages of this technology: real time information. Once the client is pressing the button, almost immediately, the order is executed. We’ve used an existing fund where we have added a specific share class using this blockchain setup. For the client, for the portfolio manager, the process is transparent, and this is exactly our objective. The interesting point is that using this setup, this distributed ledger becomes the golden source. The idea is that with this native token, we’ll be able to include digital cash solutions like the central bank digital currencies I mentioned to perform settlement, meaning the ability to swap the cash versus the token almost instantaneously.

DM: What are the next steps, Stefan?

SB: We would like to move towards industrialisation because here what we have done was a first experiment which was entirely internal investing in our local money market fund. We’d like to test additional networks and at some point, we’d like to onboard clients because the idea is to provide our clients with these new products. These are the next steps.

DM: If I can summarise a couple of the key points that you shared with us. At a high level, we’re talking about digital assets. An example is cryptocurrency, but also security tokens, which were traditional securities wrapped in new technology, essentially a new way to digitise assets. And you’re finding a lot of advantages to this technology, for example, the ability to deal with order and settlement essentially at the same time. Well, Stefan, thank you very much for joining me.

SB: Thank you, Daniel.

DM: That’s it for this week’s episode of Talking Heads. If you would like more information about tokenisation, please reach out to your BNP Paribas Asset Management contact or check out viewpoint, our website for investment insights at Viewpoint dot BNP Paribas am.com. We recommend subscribing to Talking Heads on your favourite podcast channel, such as YouTube or Spotify. You’ll receive your podcast episodes every week. If you like Talking Heads, leave us a positive review and a nice rating. You’ve been listening to the BNP Paribas Asset Management Talking Heads podcast with me, Daniel Morris and Stefan Brinaru, Head of Digital Assets. Please do join me next week. Until then, take care.