Web3: Brazilian Banking Giant Itaú Joins Bond and Fund Tokenization Pilot

CoinWorld reported:

Brazilian financial institutions continue to expand their efforts in asset tokenization. The company disclosed that Itaú Unibanco has partnered with digital asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets to participate in an industry pilot led by the Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Markets (ANBIMA), testing the issuance, trading, and settlement processes of fixed-income securities and investment funds on a distributed ledger.

Pilot Focused on Bonds and Funds
This pilot will revolve around two types of traditional financial products: fixed-income securities and investment funds. Participants will test how these assets can be issued, circulated, and settled on-chain, while also assessing the rules and technical standards required for banks and asset management institutions to access such systems.

Itaú's participation enhances the market weight of the project. By asset size, this São Paulo-based bank is one of the largest in Latin America. For the local tokenization market in Brazil, the direct involvement of large banks signifies that related experiments are moving from proof of concept to a stage closer to actual business operations.

Brazil Continues to Expand Tokenization Scenarios
In recent years, Brazil has become one of the important experimental markets for financial assets on-chain, with pilot projects not limited to internal bank initiatives. In July 2025, Brazilian credit structuring and securitization company VERT Capital proposed plans to tokenize up to $1 billion in debt and receivables on the XDC Network.

Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Mercado Bitcoin previously stated plans to tokenize $200 million in assets on the XRP Ledger, covering fixed-income and equity instruments. More recently, there have been tokenization attempts in the agricultural sector in Brazil. Some farmers in Paraná state have tokenized the rights corresponding to 10 dairy cows and conducted transactions through a system connected to the infrastructure of the Brazilian B3 exchange.

Itaú Previously Participated in Drex Testing
This is not Itaú's first involvement in related projects. In 2023, the bank was selected for the Brazilian Central Bank's Drex pilot list, participating in tests of blockchain-based tokenized currency and asset trading.

OpenAssets completed a $10 million funding round last year to build tokenization infrastructure. This round was led by Valor Capital Group, focusing on the Latin American market, with participants including USDT issuer Tether and members of the founding family of Itaú Unibanco.

As banks, exchanges, and local financial institutions continue to join, Brazil is becoming one of the markets where traditional financial asset tokenization is taking place rapidly. The focus of this pilot is not only to verify technical feasibility but also to promote a more unified access standard for banks and asset management institutions.

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