- MoonPay integrates Franklin Templeton’s tokenized money market funds into its ecosystem, enabling seamless stablecoin conversions and flexible treasury management for users.
Franklin Templeton, a global asset manager with $1.68 trillion in assets under management (AUM), has recently forged a partnership with MoonPay, a fintech firm bridging traditional finance (TradFi) and onchain finance. The move expands the range of the American multinational investment management holding company’s tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), particularly the BENJI tokenized money market fund.
The Franklin Templeton and MoonPay Partnership
According to the partners’ press release, the collaboration enables Franklin Templeton to tap into MoonPay Trade’s existing quote, routing, execution, and network. It allows institutional clients to seamlessly convert the investment giant’s tokenized money market fund into stablecoins, primarily Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.
Beyond the frictionless conversions, the easy pathway to stablecoin liquidity unlocks greater flexibility in onchain treasury management, portfolio rebalancing, collateralization, and other benefits for clients.
Sandy Kaul, Head of Innovation and Digital Assets at Franklin Templeton, and Caroline Pham, CEO of MoonPay and former Acting Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), highlighted that tokenized money market funds can only fully harness the advantages brought about by enhanced liquidity and capital efficiency if reinforced by an institution with vast access to the onchain financial landscape.
“Tokenized money market funds only become more useful when they can move with the speed and programmability of the broader digital asset ecosystem,” said Kaul. “For us, leadership in this space means doing the work to make that unlock possible, and teaming up with MoonPay creates another trusted gateway for institutions to move between stablecoin liquidity and tokenized fund exposure.”
It’s worth noting that the new milestone with Franklin Templeton represents Pham’s biggest achievement since taking over the helm as CEO of MoonPay. She served under the CFTC for nearly five years, including more than a year as acting chair of the agency.
“Digital assets like tokenized money market funds provide benefits like improved liquidity and capital efficiency, but only if institutions have access to the onchain financial ecosystem,” stated Pham. “MoonPay’s strategic partnership with Franklin Templeton on liquidity and collateral solutions showcases the latest innovations driving institutional adoption of digital assets.”
Franklin Templeton’s Tokenized RWAs
Franklin Templeton currently maintains $2.49 billion worth of tokenized RWAs per RWA.xyz. Its largest offerings in the space are iBENJI and BENJI.
Each unit of iBENJI represents a share of the Franklin Onchain Institutional Liquidity Fund. The product invests at least 99.5% of its total assets in US government securities, cash, and repurchase agreements (repos) fully backed by US government securities and cash. It currently holds a total asset value of roughly $1.59 billion.
Meanwhile, BENJI corresponds to one share of the Franklin OnChain US Government Money Fund. As its name explicitly says, it invests in high-quality US short-term government securities, cash, and repos. The fund carries a total asset value of approximately $821.13 million.
