BNY Mellon Brings Transfer Agency Records On-Chain

BNY Mellon, one of the world's largest custodian banks, is pushing forward in its blockchain adoption efforts by launching a blockchain-based transfer agency business. This new platform will manage fund ownership records and investor transactions, moving them from traditional databases to a shared on-chain ledger.

The move follows BNY's broader digital asset expansion and its progress under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. BNY's chief product and innovation officer Carolyn Weinberg explained that the bank is modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing transfer agency records on-chain.

Transfer agents are financial service providers that maintain official records of who owns shares in investment funds, handling tasks such as processing investor transactions and updating ownership records. BNY's traditional transfer agent services cover roughly $8.6 trillion in assets across 7.6 million accounts, but the new digital platform aims to create a shared source of information for market participants.

Early users of BNY's digital transfer agency include asset manager Baillie Gifford and BlackRock. The firm has not disclosed which blockchain network will support the new platform.