Itaú Unibanco, Brazil’s biggest bank and Latin America’s largest lender by assets, has entered a joint initiative with digital-asset infrastructure firm OpenAssets to participate in a tokenization pilot organized by the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association, known as ANBIMA.

The collaboration focuses on testing the full lifecycle of tokenized fixed-income products and investment funds on distributed-ledger technology. Participants will examine how these instruments can be issued, traded, settled and managed while evaluating the technical standards, operational processes and compliance frameworks required for regulated institutions.

Scope of the ANBIMA Pilot

ANBIMA’s program brings together more than 50 financial and capital-market organizations. The effort centers on fixed-income securities, including debentures that are widely used in Brazilian corporate debt markets, alongside investment funds that carry distinct ownership, trading and administration requirements.

Rather than launching a public product, the pilot develops technical proofs of concept. OpenAssets and Itaú will contribute expertise on architecture and common standards, assessing efficiency gains and identifying operational challenges that arise during issuance, secondary trading and ongoing asset management.

Gurbacs described Brazil as a forward-looking financial market and a natural setting to advance tokenization from early experiments toward production-ready systems.

Itaú’s Role and Prior Experience

Itaú Unibanco holds more than $562 billion in total assets, according to S&P Global rankings, and ranks as Latin America’s largest bank by market capitalization. Its participation supplies the pilot with deep experience in conventional deposits, lending, investments and capital-market services.

This is not the bank’s first engagement with blockchain-based finance. In 2023 the Central Bank of Brazil selected Itaú among institutions for the Drex pilot, which tested transactions involving tokenized money and financial assets.

Broader Activity in Brazilian Markets

Brazil has become a notable testing ground for placing traditional assets on blockchain rails under regulated structures. In 2025 securitization firm VERT Capital outlined plans to tokenize as much as $1 billion of debt and receivables on the XDC Network. Crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin announced intentions to tokenize $200 million in fixed-income and equity instruments on the XRP Ledger.

Tokenization has also extended beyond conventional securities. Farmers in the state of Paraná tokenized dairy cows to access alternative financing routes when traditional bank lending proved constrained, with the resulting tokens linked to infrastructure connected to the B3 exchange.

Other major Brazilian institutions, including Bradesco, Santander Brasil, BTG Pactual and Banco do Brasil, have developed capabilities in tokenized securities, blockchain systems and digital custody. Exchange operator B3 has similarly studied distributed-ledger applications across capital-market functions.

Infrastructure and Market Context

OpenAssets builds infrastructure and standards for real-world asset tokenization. The company raised $10 million in the prior year in a round led by Latin America-focused Valor Capital Group, with participation from Tether and members of the family that founded Itaú Unibanco. It also contributes to open tokenization standards in collaboration with the Linux Foundation Decentralized Trust.

Globally, financial institutions continue to explore similar applications. Industry estimates project significant growth in tokenized securities as banks and asset managers move bonds, funds and other instruments onto digital ledgers. Parallel initiatives in other jurisdictions are examining custody, settlement and legal ownership questions that ANBIMA’s pilot is also addressing within the Brazilian regulatory environment.

The joint work by Itaú and OpenAssets forms part of a wider industry effort to determine how distributed-ledger systems can operate alongside existing capital-market infrastructure while meeting the operational and compliance expectations of regulated participants.