Today, Hedera announced that asset manager abrdn has joined its board of directors. Unlike most public blockchains, Hedera is a distributed ledger, not a blockchain, and the governing council is controlled by 27 major companies, including IBM, Google, Boeing, Nomura, Standard Bank, DBS Bank and FIS.

With £508bn ($577bn) in assets under management, abrdn is one of the UK’s largest fund managers. It is exploring the use of Hedera to tokenize funds.

“Becoming the first asset manager to be accepted into the Hedera Governing Council further strengthens abrdn’s position as a leader in the development of the digital asset ecosystem,” said Duncan Moir, Senior Investment Manager at abrdn. “We chose to join a number of leading global organizations on the Hedera Governing Council, because Hedera’s emphasis on strong governance, innovation and sustainability aligns closely with our values.”

In August, abrdn invested in Archax, the institutional crypto and digital asset exchange. In the last six months or so, the asset management sector has started to show increased interest in tokenizing funds.

In July, the UK Investment Association (IA) asked the UK regulator to create a framework for tokenized funds and called for a decentralized finance task force. Calasatone, the large fund distributor owned by the Carlyle Group, has been ahead of the game. It moved part of its backend to blockchain in 2019, and in early 2021, Calastone’s CTO shared his vision for tokenized funds with Ledger Insights.

Apex, the fund management company, is another major player in the sector that has embraced DLT this year. It acquired FundAdminChain, one of its many movements in the sector.

Alliance Bernstein, the sister company of Equitable Life, partners with Allfunds Blockchain. Digital asset startup Securitize has partnered with KKR and Hamilton Lane to make funds previously only available to institutions accessible to high net worth individuals.

These are just a few highlights from an industry that is realizing the potential cost savings of distributing funds with a single source of information.

And the possible expansion of the investor base through tokenization.