Finance · 11 August, 2026 · 2 min read
Itaú Unibanco Joins ANBIMA Pilot With OpenAssets To Test Tokenized Bonds And Funds
Itaú Unibanco partners with OpenAssets to test tokenized bonds and funds in ANBIMA pilot. Pilot aims to issue, trade, settle fixed-income securities and investment funds on blockchain.
Purpose of Itaú tokenisation pilot: market modernisation vs investor/digital access.
7 of 9 outlets skipped it: pilot runs on a private permissioned DLT network with simulated/no real trades.
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DiarioBitcoin
“piloto para evaluar la use de blockchain en la emisión, trading y settlement”Read the original ↗
Bitcoin World
“could offer fractional ownership, lower minimum investment thresholds”Read the original ↗
Shifts emphasis between infrastructure modernisation and retail-style access claims.
Itaú backs tokenized bonds
Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s largest lender by assets, is stepping deeper into tokenization by teaming up with OpenAssets to test tokenized bonds and funds in a pilot run by Brazil’s financial watchdog ANBIMA.
“Itaú Unibanco said it teamed up with tokenization specialist OpenAssets to test tokenized bonds and funds”
CoinDesk reports the pilot will explore how fixed-income securities and investment funds can be issued, traded and settled using distributed-ledger technology, while also examining the rules and technical standards needed for banks and asset managers to use such systems.
The project is framed as a controlled industry test rather than an immediate public rollout, with the initiative described as evaluating the issuance, trading, and settlement of capital-market instruments using DLT.
In the same reporting, OpenAssets Chairman and CEO Gabor Gurbacs called Brazil a “forward-looking” financial market and said it is a natural place to move tokenization “from exploration to production.”
Standards, compliance, and tests
Multiple outlets describe the ANBIMA-led effort as bringing banks and asset managers together to evaluate regulatory and technical frameworks for DLT-based capital markets.
TradingView’s account says the companies will develop technical proof-of-concept tests and assess operational, compliance and technological requirements for tokenized assets, with debentures and investment funds among the use cases being explored.
KuCoin’s report adds that ANBIMA selected 20 pilot use cases in April from 39 proposals submitted by more than 50 banks, asset managers, and technology companies.
The same KuCoin reporting says the tests are being conducted on a private, permissioned DLT network in a simulated environment without real financial transactions, and that the pilot is designed to validate technical feasibility before any broader scaling.
Brazil’s broader tokenization push
The Itaú pilot is presented as part of a wider Brazilian push for regulated digital assets, with the sources tying tokenization efforts to other initiatives and to the country’s regulatory timetable.
“The institution will test the issuance of fixed-income securities and investment funds represented in tokens”
Criptotendencias says the collaboration is coordinated by ANBIMA and focuses on debentures and investment funds, while also describing the objective as identifying technical and regulatory adjustments needed before broader adoption.
CoinDesk’s broader context points to other Brazilian tokenization plans, including VERT Capital’s plan to tokenize up to $1 billion of debt and receivables on the XDC Network and Mercado Bitcoin’s plan to tokenize $200 million in assets on the XRP Ledger.
In the same CoinDesk reporting, the bank’s involvement is linked to the scale of Itaú’s balance sheet, with the São Paulo-based lender described as having more than $562 billion in total assets, and the article citing Citi’s estimate that tokenized securities could grow into a $5.5 trillion market by 2030.