In 2026, Ant International will join forces with European asset management giants to promote tokenized monetary funds into the corporate finance scene.
The payment field has noticed that Amundi, CACEIS and Ant International recently announced the progress of tripartite cooperation.
Amundi has launched a tokenized share category for Amundi Money Market Fund – Short Term. The relevant shares are denominated in euros and US dollars and were developed by Amundi for Ant International to support the internal liquidity management needs of Ant International Group.
What is tokenized this time is a specific share category of money market funds. It does not mean that fund products operate independently from the original supervision, custody, transfer and asset service systems.
In the cooperation, Amundi provides money market fund products and investment management capabilities, CACEIS serves as the transfer agent and tokenization agent, and Ant International serves as the first customer and uses it to build its own on-chain financial capabilities.
The three parties are also exploring the next step of connecting Amundi Money Market Fund – Short Term to Whale.
Whale is Ant International’s internal blockchain financial management platform.
The three parties hope to connect Amundi’s funds to the Whale platform and jointly develop new money market fund solutions to serve the financial management needs of more global companies.
This arrangement is aimed at institutional asset management scenarios and is not a fund sales action for ordinary users.
In the past, blockchain applications in corporate treasury management focused more on fund allocation, account mapping, tokenized deposits and intra-group liquidity.
The core question is how money can move faster between different entities, different bank accounts and different time zones.
After money market funds entered this scenario, problems began to extend backwards, such as the collection and allocation of funds after they arrive, the allocation of cash management assets when funds are temporarily unused, and the return of payment, settlement and operation scenarios when funds are used again. These have become important parts of the financial management of large enterprises.
For multinational enterprises, fund management has gone beyond the level of “whether a sum of money can be received.”
Enterprises operate in different markets, different currencies, and different bank accounts, and funds are distributed across multiple entities, regions, and time zones. Every action such as collection, payment, exchange, collection, allocation, retention, and investment involves efficiency, cost, risk, and compliance boundaries.
As platform companies, cross-border e-commerce, global merchant service providers and digital payment institutions expand their capital scale, the importance of back-end capital management is rising.
Money market funds have a special position in corporate financial management and are usually used for short-term fund management. The core is to improve cash use efficiency while maintaining liquidity.
When money market fund shares are tokenized, registration, holding, circulation, information visibility and operational efficiency may gain new technical support.
Amundi brings regulated money market fund products, and CACEIS complements asset services and registration and transfer capabilities.
Payment institutions solve capital flows, banks provide accounts, deposits and clearing foundations, and asset management institutions provide cash management products.
After the three types of capabilities are put into the same corporate finance scenario, the service boundaries of the on-chain finance platform may expand.
According to public information, Ant International has previously cooperated with a number of international banks on tokenized deposits, bank account tokenization, on-chain fund allocation and multi-currency liquidity management, allowing the group’s internal funds to flow closer to real-time between different entities, reducing the capital management friction caused by traditional bank clearing times, business hours and cross-market time differences.
Early cooperation mainly solves the problem of real-time flow of funds, such as tokenizing bank deposits, supporting real-time transfers between corporate wallets, improving the efficiency of fund allocation within the group, and increasing the visibility of fund positions.
Corporate treasury requires a set of continuous capabilities. After funds enter the account, they must be able to be identified, collected and allocated; when funds are temporarily not in use, they must be able to enter appropriate cash management products; when funds need to be paid, they must be able to be withdrawn or reallocated in a timely manner.
If tokenized currency funds can be further connected to Whale, the on-chain financial platform will extend from the capital channel to the corporate cash management operation interface. Enterprises can manage multi-currency funds, bank accounts, internal group positions and cash management assets in the same system. Only then will payment, settlement, liquidity and investment management be further coordinated.
For the cross-border payment industry, this type of exploration will push the competition in corporate service capabilities further back.
In the past, when payment institutions served companies overseas, they often started with acquiring, collecting, paying, currency exchange, cash withdrawals, local accounts and compliance declarations. Whoever covers more markets, supports more currencies, receives faster accounts, and has lower rates will have an easier time acquiring customers.
Now, accounts, settlement, liquidity and capital allocation are beginning to be considered in the same set of service capabilities.
This cooperation is more focused on corporate treasury management under a regulatory framework. The service targets are internal liquidity and global corporate treasury needs. The underlying assets are money market funds. Subsequent expansion is also subject to legal and regulatory approvals.
For tokenized monetary funds to truly become a regular tool in corporate financial management, they also need to solve practical issues such as regulatory boundaries, banking system connection, asset-side liquidity, and internal corporate governance.
Kelvin Li, senior vice president and general manager of platform technology of Ant International, mentioned in the announcement that Ant International’s goal is to build a future of instant, borderless capital flows, and said that the company has used blockchain for internal financial management since 2019.
On-chain finance is no longer just a concept display, but has begun to enter the company’s internal fund management process.
Whale points to the lower-level corporate financial capabilities and is the financial infrastructure that serves the company’s internal capital flow, group liquidity and cross-market capital allocation.
When Whale connected bank tokenized deposits, the exploration centered on accounts and fund allocation; when Whale explored connecting to Amundi money market funds, it touched on the allocation and management needs during the period of fund stay.
The announcement made it clear that relevant advancement still needs to obtain necessary legal and regulatory approvals. Only by operating under a regulatory framework can tokenized deposits, tokenized funds and on-chain assets become tools that corporate customers can use in the long term.
When payments, accounts, tokenized deposits, money market funds, and blockchain treasury platforms are gradually connected, the competition among cross-border payment institutions will shift from “completing a transaction” to “managing a pool of funds.” Global payment competition will not only occur at the cashier, but will also extend to corporate treasury rooms.
