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Brazilian lender Itaú Unibanco has partnered with digital asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets for its participation in ANBIMA’s capital-markets tokenization pilot.
Itaú was already selected for the pilot in April. The August 11 agreement brings OpenAssets’ technology into Itaú’s use case, which will test fixed-income securities and investment funds on distributed ledger infrastructure.
Itaú and OpenAssets Will Test Debentures and Investment Funds
The partners will develop technical proofs of concept covering tokenized fixed-income instruments and investment funds. Their work will also examine tokenization architecture, common technical standards and operational and compliance frameworks needed by financial institutions.
ANBIMA selected Itaú for one of 10 use cases combining debentures and investment funds on the same DLT infrastructure. The tests cover the asset lifecycle from structuring and issuance through transfers, corporate events and settlement.
OpenAssets said the collaboration will explore how tokenized assets can be issued, settled and managed within the standards required by regulated financial institutions.
ANBIMA Selected 20 Projects From 39 Proposals
ANBIMA received 39 proposals for the pilot and selected 20 involving more than 50 banks, asset managers and technology companies.
Ten projects combine debentures and funds, seven focus solely on debentures and three test investment funds. Other selected participants include Banco do Brasil, Caixa, BTG Pactual, Santander, B3, Mercado Bitcoin, Banco Safra and Bradesco, either individually or through consortiums.
The testing phase is expected to run for about six months. ANBIMA said it will use the process to identify operational bottlenecks and develop shared references for future tokenization infrastructure.
Six-Month Pilot Excludes Investors and Real Money
ANBIMA’s pilot runs in a controlled DLT environment without investor participation or movement of real funds.
The projects simulate conditions across the lifecycle of tokenized securities rather than issuing live bonds or investment funds to the public. ANBIMA said the controlled setup is intended to reproduce real market challenges while allowing participants to test new infrastructure safely.
Itaú and OpenAssets will use their project to assess how issuance, transfers and settlement can operate across shared DLT infrastructure while meeting institutional operating and compliance requirements.
ANBIMA plans to share the main challenges and lessons from the roughly six-month testing period with Brazil’s capital-markets industry.
