Jersey: the trusted centre for digital assets

An Overview: Elliot Refson, Head of Funds, Jersey Finance

Building on decades of success in funds, capital markets, private wealth and fiduciary services, Jersey provides the specialist expertise, regulatory certainty and institutional confidence required for enabling institutions to structure, issue and manage tokenised assets and associated market infrastructure within a stable, well-governed and internationally respected framework.

Tokenised equities are among the easiest assets to bring on-chain, given they are actively priced, while offering potential benefits including 24/7 trading and immediate settlement. Other asset classes are increasingly following this path.

Against this backdrop, Jersey’s position in tokenised equities demonstrates its proposition at meaningful global scale, industry figures indicate that, as at August this year, Jersey is the second-largest issuer domicile in the RWA.xyz-tracked distributed tokenised-equities market, with around US$589 million in distributed tokenised-stock value.

That’s around a 25% share of the RWA.xyz-tracked distributed tokenised-stock market.
But this is a market that is highly dynamic, with values moving constantly with issuance and redemptions, underlying share prices, new product launches and evolving data classifications.
Nevertheless, Jersey’s growth has been significant and with good reason, as Dilmun Leach, Partner at Walkers, and James Cunningham-Davis, Managing Director of Cavendish Fiduciary (Jersey), explore here…

Q: What types of digital assets businesses are you currently seeing come to Jersey?

Dilmun Leach (DL): Our clients in the digital assets space are increasingly traditional financial institutions, looking to launch new products and service lines such as investment funds, market making, payments, virtual asset services, and tokenised financial instruments. We are also seeing large digital asset businesses launch new tokenised products from Jersey and acquire traditional financial services infrastructure to enable them to scale their products.

What’s particularly notable is the calibre of participants entering the market. Rather than pursuing speculative use cases, businesses are focused on practical applications that improve access, efficiency and liquidity. Real-world asset tokenisation is emerging as one of the most compelling areas of growth and is attracting significant interest from both fintech innovators and established financial institutions.

James Cunningham-Davis (JCD): A significant proportion of current activity relates to the tokenisation of listed securities, bonds, fund interests and other real-world assets, often through dedicated Jersey vehicles supporting international platforms or transactions.
We are also seeing increased interest from virtual asset service providers (VASPs), family offices and proprietary trading businesses, including those using their own algorithms and seeking a well-established, tax-neutral jurisdiction from which to operate.

Q: Why is Jersey proving attractive for these businesses?
JCD: Jersey combines the responsiveness and accessibility of a smaller jurisdiction with the expertise, infrastructure and reputation of an established international finance centre. Its longstanding experience in funds, securitisation, corporate issuers and complex cross-border transactions is readily transferable to digital assets and tokenised structures.

Importantly, Jersey also has an engaged and adaptive regulator that is supportive of responsible innovation while maintaining appropriate governance, AML/CFT/CPF and risk-management standards.

DL: Businesses operating in the digital assets sector increasingly recognise that long-term success depends on operating within a stable and trusted regulatory environment. For tokenisation projects in particular, legal and regulatory certainty is critical. Businesses need confidence that ownership rights, governance arrangements and investor protections are clearly supported within an appropriate legal framework.

As tokenised financial products move further into the mainstream, businesses are gravitating towards jurisdictions that combine innovation-friendly regulation with globally recognised standards of governance and compliance. Jersey responds well to those needs.

Q: How is the digital assets landscape continuing to evolve globally, and where are the main future challenges?

DL: The market is maturing rapidly, with attention shifting from speculative investment opportunities towards practical applications of blockchain technology. Real-world asset tokenisation is at the centre of that evolution, as businesses look to digitise and fractionalise assets to improve liquidity, accessibility and operational efficiency.

The key challenge is ensuring that product laws, such as companies law, and regulation develops at the same pace as innovation. Businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions continue to face a fragmented regulatory landscape, while regulators must balance innovation against investor protection, market integrity and financial crime risks.

JCD: Businesses must also consider accounting, audit, valuation, data protection and regulatory classification across multiple jurisdictions. For the industry, the continuing challenge will be balancing innovation and commercial opportunity with robust governance, effective risk management and increasingly international regulatory expectations.

Q: How is Jersey’s offering continuing to evolve to meet the needs of digital assets businesses?

JCD: Jersey has progressively developed its framework for VASPs, token offerings and Real-World Asset tokenisation, while remaining aligned with international regulatory, AML/CFT/CPF and tax-transparency standards. Its principles-based approach allows the underlying activity and risk to determine the regulatory treatment, rather than focusing solely on the technology used.

This already encompasses tokenised funds, securities, structured products and treasury vehicles, as well as VASPs and other virtual asset businesses seeking a credible international base. Jersey is well positioned to build on this by combining regulatory clarity and engagement with specialist expertise and strong governance.

DL: Jersey’s focus is increasingly on global financial institutions bringing new products to market using blockchain technology, including the tokenisation of real-world assets, building on the established digital currency model. The projects we are seeing increasingly involve structures that bridge traditional finance and digital infrastructure.

Looking ahead, the largest opportunity is undoubtedly real-world asset tokenisation. Jersey’s deep expertise in funds, corporate structures and cross-border finance means it is exceptionally well positioned to support that growth.

Closing Remarks: Elliot Refson

As digital assets mature, institutional participants are increasingly seeking jurisdictions that combine deep specialist financial-services expertise, regulatory certainty, robust governance and international credibility and Jersey has responded by positioning itself as a trusted centre for digital assets, enabling institutions to structure, issue and manage tokenised assets within a stable, well-governed and internationally respected framework.

Importantly, Jersey treats virtual assets in the same way as other asset classes and has positioned real-world-asset tokenisation within its established securitisation framework.
And Jersey’s opportunity extends beyond the issuing vehicle. Tokenised securities require a broader institutional ecosystem spanning legal structuring, administration, governance, corporate actions, asset and collateral verification, reporting, assurance and associated market infrastructure.

Jersey already has the financial-services capabilities required to support this value chain. The focus now is on building on its existing issuer position to capture a greater share of the structuring, issuance and ongoing management of institutional digital assets and the associated market infrastructure that underpins them.

Learn more about Jersey’s offering at: https://www.jerseyfinance.com/tokenisation

This article was originally posted on Real Deals.