R3 has launched a new division, R3 Labs, to focus on the tokenisation of real-world assets (RWAs) on public blockchains.
The company said the initiative builds on the USD 17 billion already tokenised across its existing platforms and will expand to institutions seeking wider distribution and liquidity in regulated markets.
The new division will concentrate on deploying tokenised assets on the Solana network. According to R3 officials, the combination of the firm’s regulatory and compliance experience with Solana’s transaction speed and scale is expected to simplify the process of issuing RWAs. Institutions will be able to confirm transactions on-chain with finality in less than a second, which R3 notes is significantly faster than the capacity currently demonstrated by Ethereum.
Focusing on institutional adoption
R3 Labs plans to introduce products and services designed to address barriers that have limited institutional use of public blockchains. The company highlighted that features from its Corda network, such as privacy and control mechanisms, would also be applied to its new offering. This is intended to provide companies with improved access to liquidity and efficiencies while maintaining regulatory alignment.
Industry partners expressed support for the initiative. A representative from HQLAX said R3’s technology had already improved how collateral is managed across banks, and that the new division could extend this by linking permissioned and public systems. A representative from SIX Securities Services also noted that institutions are becoming more open to using public blockchains, provided that regulatory and operational requirements are met.
R3 has appointed a long-time company official as chief executive of the new unit, and another executive with more than two decades of experience in fintech and digital assets as global head of sales. Company representatives said these leadership appointments are expected to support the wider adoption of tokenised assets in capital markets.
