Why Wealth Managers in Australia Can No Longer Wait to Tokenize

Australia’s Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act 2026 brings Digital Asset Platforms and tokenized Custody Platforms under the AFS licensing regime, aligning them with existing standards for brokers and fund managers. The Reserve Bank of Australia and Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre’s Project Acacia tested 20 wholesale tokenized use cases, including a pilot wholesale CBDC across public and private ledgers with major banks participating. These developments mark a shift from regulatory debate to statutory compliance, prompting wealth managers to assess tokenized structures that were previously unfeasible under traditional frameworks.

Tokenized funds and ETFs enable fractional ownership, 24/7 trading, and instantaneous settlement by replacing centralized clearinghouses with smart contracts. Franklin Templeton launched a tokenized fund in 2021, BNP Paribas issued tokenized fund shares on Allfunds Blockchain in 2025, and BNY Mellon partnered with Goldman Sachs to tokenize money market fund shares on LiquidityDirect the same year. Tokenized US Treasuries grew from $1.8 billion to $7.5 billion in a single year, signaling rapid adoption despite representing a small fraction of the $7 trillion money market fund industry.

For private wealth, the competitive focus now centers on licensing, custody readiness, and distribution capabilities. Issuing a tokenized fund is only part of the challenge; reaching investors across jurisdictions with varying licensing, eligibility, and transfer-agent requirements remains a critical hurdle. Calastone and Fireblocks aim to address this gap by combining Calastone’s trusted distribution network with Fireblocks’ custody, tokenization, and settlement infrastructure, ensuring tokenized products can move seamlessly through existing channels while maintaining compliance with Australia’s incoming regime.

Australia’s intergenerational wealth transfer, involving roughly A$3.5 trillion moving to digital-native beneficiaries over the next two decades, underscores the urgency for advisers and private banks to adapt. The next generation expects mobile, transparent, and always-on experiences, with higher comfort for digital assets and different risk profiles. Firms that consolidate traditional and digital holdings onto a single screen, enable real-time settlement and reporting, and align portfolios with evolving values will retain relationships, while those that fail to integrate tokenized structures risk losing assets at the point of transfer.