Franklin Templeton, the global asset manager with $1.6 trillion in assets under management, has expanded its Benji Technology Platform to BNB Chain, marking another step in its broader push into tokenized financial products. The move is designed to leverage BNB Chain’s low transaction costs and fast settlement characteristics to improve the distribution and accessibility of blockchain-based investment products for both everyday investors and institutions.
Benji Extends Franklin Templeton’s Tokenization Infrastructure
The firm said Benji serves as its blockchain-integrated technology stack for token-based investments, handling trading, fund management, and administrative operations. In practical terms, the platform connects onchain infrastructure with the kinds of operational processes that traditional financial institutions and regulated investors are already familiar with.
By deploying on BNB Chain, Franklin Templeton is widening the network footprint of its tokenization strategy. The company framed the integration as a way to reach investors where they are already active, while maintaining the security and compliance controls expected in regulated financial markets.
Franklin Templeton noted that it launched the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use blockchain for transactions and share records in 2021. Since then, it has continued building blockchain-based products across a range of segments, including retail investing, wealth management, institutional distribution, and banking-related use cases. The BNB Chain expansion fits into that broader strategy of bringing conventional investment products onto blockchain rails without abandoning regulatory discipline.
Security, Compliance, and Utility at the Center
Roger Bayston, head of digital assets at Franklin Templeton, said the firm’s objective is to engage more investors in the environments where they are already participating, while continuing to push tokenization forward with security and compliance at the forefront. He added that Franklin Templeton and BNB Chain will work together to deliver tokenized assets with greater utility.
That framing is important because tokenization in regulated finance is no longer being presented simply as a technical experiment. Instead, large financial institutions are increasingly treating blockchain as a settlement and recordkeeping layer that can potentially make fund distribution more efficient, more transparent, and more accessible. Franklin Templeton’s language around controls, administration, and integration reflects this institutional approach: the goal is not just to issue assets onchain, but to embed them within familiar operational and governance structures.
Why BNB Chain Matters for This Expansion
BNB Chain has been positioning itself as an infrastructure venue for real-world assets (RWAs), including money market funds, credit instruments, and publicly listed equities. Its appeal to issuers centers on a mix of fast settlement, low fees, and data tooling that supports transparency and auditability. For financial firms exploring tokenized products, those features matter because the underlying network must support both scalability and oversight.
From Franklin Templeton’s perspective, these network characteristics may help streamline distribution without undermining the expectations of internal risk teams and external regulators. That is a critical balancing act in tokenized finance. Public blockchains can expand access and improve operational efficiency, but regulated institutions still need confidence in governance, record integrity, and compliance workflows.
Sarah Song, head of business development at BNB Chain, said the collaboration demonstrates that the network can support regulated financial products at scale. Her comments reinforce BNB Chain’s broader effort to present itself not only as a crypto-native ecosystem, but also as a viable foundation for institutionally oriented tokenized assets.
A Broader Signal for Tokenized Funds
The integration comes at a time when tokenization continues to gain momentum as one of the most closely watched trends in digital finance. Advocates argue that tokenized funds can make investment products function more like internet-native applications: easier to access, faster to settle, and more flexible to distribute across different user bases. In that sense, Franklin Templeton’s move is significant not just because of the firm’s size, but because it adds another high-profile example of a traditional asset manager deepening its commitment to blockchain-based fund infrastructure.
Rather than treating tokenization as a niche experiment, Franklin Templeton appears to be building it into a multi-channel strategy spanning retail, wealth, institutional, and banking use cases. Expanding Benji to BNB Chain suggests the company sees value in operating across multiple blockchain environments to improve reach and usability. For the market, this is another sign that major asset managers are increasingly focused on practical deployment rather than theoretical exploration.
Market Attention Also Falls on BNB
The announcement also arrives against a backdrop of strong market performance for BNB. According to the report, as of Sept. 24, BNB was trading at $1,016, up 18% against the U.S. dollar over the month. The token had reached $1,079 on Sept. 21, and was described as sitting a little more than 5% below its all-time high.
While Franklin Templeton’s decision is fundamentally about financial infrastructure and tokenized product distribution rather than direct token price support, major institutional adoption can still influence how the market perceives a blockchain network’s credibility. For BNB Chain, securing a relationship with a global asset manager of Franklin Templeton’s scale strengthens its narrative as a platform capable of hosting regulated, real-world financial products.
More broadly, the development highlights an ongoing convergence between traditional asset management and public blockchain networks. As firms continue to experiment with tokenized mutual funds, onchain records, and blockchain-enabled financial administration, the competitive landscape may increasingly depend on which networks can offer the best combination of cost efficiency, settlement speed, transparency, and compliance readiness.
For now, Franklin Templeton’s latest move suggests that tokenization is becoming less about proof-of-concept and more about real deployment choices. By bringing Benji to BNB Chain, the firm is expanding the operational reach of its digital asset strategy and reinforcing the idea that tokenized funds are moving closer to mainstream financial infrastructure.