Standard Chartered unit launches tokenization platform Libeara

SC Ventures, the investment and innovation arm of the Standard Chartered bank, has launched a tokenization platform called Libeara.

Libeara has been incubated as a separate company based out of Singapore, SC Ventures said Tuesday. It previously conducted proof-of-concept projects as a finalist in the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Global Retail CBDC Challenge and as the team behind digital platform prototypes used by the Hong Kong government, Ghana and the Philippines.

"Libeara is an exciting new venture: tokenization will make a number of asset classes more widely available," Alex Manson, head of SC Ventures, said in a statement. "As we now have institutional grade custody and exchange of digital assets with Zodia Custody and Zodia Markets, Libeara is the next logical step to better serve our customers."

Libeara — a portmanteau of Liberty and Aerarium (the first retail US Treasuries and the Roman Treasury, respectively) — is being led by Aaron Gwak as its founder and CEO, who previously worked for the Standard Chartered group for over 16 years. The new venture aims to enable fund managers, governments and issuers to bring real-world assets on-chain or issue "regulated security tokens."

Libeara's partners include Fireblocks for custody, Chainalysis and Chekk for compliance, and Fazz, via StraitsX, for convenient conversion between stablecoins and fiat.

Tokenised Singapore-dollar government bond fund

Libeara has partnered with FundBridge Capital, a Singapore-regulated fund platform, to help create the tokenized Singapore-dollar government bond fund for accredited investors.

"This will be the first time a Singapore Dollar Government Bond Fund will be offered in token format," said Gwak. "To boost credibility and structural integrity, the fund will be working with an international credit rating agency to have it rated — a first in the world. The agency will be reviewing both the underlying asset quality of the components of the fund and the token structure as well."

Tokenization is an emerging trend in the crypto space, attracting interest from major players in traditional financial services. Earlier this month, HSBC Holdings launched a platform to tokenize ownership of physical gold held in its London vault. Last month, UBS Asset Management launched a pilot of a tokenized money market fund on Ethereum. Recently, Citi introduced Token Services, which will tokenize clients' deposits so they can be instantly sent anywhere in the world.