Itaú, Latin America’s largest private-sector bank, is joining an industry pilot focused on tokenizing Brazil’s fixed-income securities and investment funds, partnering with OpenAssets to test how these assets could work on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) network.
The initiative is led by the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association (ANBIMA) and is designed to evaluate not only the technical feasibility of issuance and trading, but also the practical requirements that institutions face around operations, compliance, and overall system design.
Key takeaways
- Itaú and OpenAssets will develop technical proofs of concept for tokenized fixed-income instruments and investment funds in Brazil.
- The pilot is organized by ANBIMA and examines issuance, trading, and settlement using DLT in a controlled, simulated setting.
- Debentures and investment funds are among the primary tokenization use cases being explored.
- ANBIMA’s pilot originally began testing after selecting 20 use cases from 39 proposals submitted by more than 50 organizations.
ANBIMA-led pilot expands tokenization testing beyond concept
Tuesday’s announcement places Itaú and OpenAssets inside ANBIMA’s broader effort to test capital markets activities—specifically issuance, trading, and settlement—using distributed ledger technology.
ANBIMA frames the work as an industry-led evaluation rather than a live rollout, with participating groups producing proofs of concept and mapping out how tokenized capital market instruments could fit into existing institutional processes.
That structure matters for markets because the barriers to tokenized assets are often as much operational and regulatory as they are technological. In a bank-led pilot, issues like controls, reconciliation, and compliance workflows can be as consequential as the smart contract design itself.
What Itaú and OpenAssets are expected to test
Under the partnership, OpenAssets will provide the tokenization infrastructure used for the pilot’s technical work. Itaú, meanwhile, is expected to contribute capital markets expertise as the teams explore how tokenized assets could operate within institutional frameworks.
According to the announcement, the companies’ work will focus on developing technical proofs of concept and assessing the operational, compliance, and technology requirements for tokenized assets. Debentures and investment funds are explicitly included among the use cases being examined.
Because the pilot is conducted on a private, permissioned DLT network in a simulated environment, the activity is intended to test system behavior and requirements without deploying real financial transactions. That approach is often used early on to reduce risk while still exposing the process to realistic constraints.
From 39 proposals to 20 use cases—and why the simulated network matters
ANBIMA previously moved the pilot into its testing phase in April, selecting 20 use cases from 39 proposals submitted by more than 50 banks, asset managers, and technology companies.
While the announcement does not provide details on how Itaú’s participation changes the existing scope, it does show how quickly the project is attracting large institutional players. The selection step indicates there was already substantial interest across different segments of Brazil’s financial industry, with many groups competing to define what should be tested first.
Running trials on a permissioned network and in a simulated environment is a significant design choice. It allows participants to model how tokenized instruments might be issued, transferred, and settled while keeping the pilot insulated from the risk and complexity of live markets. For investors and market participants watching tokenization efforts, that distinction helps clarify what is being validated: process design and feasibility, not yet market migration or production-grade infrastructure.
RWA momentum continues to rise on public blockchains
Although Itaú’s work is focused on Brazil’s capital markets pilot within a permissioned DLT setting, it lands amid broader momentum for real-world asset tokenization globally.
RWA.xyz data cited in the announcement indicates that the value of tokenized real-world assets distributed on public blockchains has more than doubled over the past year. It rose from around $18.9 billion in August 2025 to about $38.3 billion at the time of the report, with US Treasury debt the largest category, accounting for more than $16 billion.
That growth highlights a key tension the industry is working through: public blockchain tokenization has seen expanding adoption, while institutional fixed-income and fund tokenization often requires additional layers—legal, operational, and settlement-related—before it can be integrated at scale. Pilots like ANBIMA’s aim to bridge that gap by testing capital markets workflows in a way that aligns with institutional expectations.
What to watch next in Brazil’s tokenization roadmap
Participants will likely focus on whether tokenized debentures and investment funds can be handled with acceptable operational rigor and compliance alignment in the pilot’s proof-of-concept environment. The next signal investors and market observers should look for is how ANBIMA and participating institutions translate those simulated results into clearer requirements for real-world issuance, trading, and settlement.
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