Pendle is expanding its focus on institutional tokenization through RWA Insights, a new interview series examining how traditional financial assets can move beyond blockchain issuance and become usable within onchain markets. The second installment features Franklin Templeton and centers on the infrastructure needed to scale tokenized funds, following an inaugural discussion with Partners Group and Asseto.
In the latest RWA Insights discussion, Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President in Franklin Templeton’s FIRST group for Asia Pacific, discussed the development of Benji, cross-chain interoperability and the firm’s approach to distributing regulated investment products through blockchain infrastructure. Franklin’s current emphasis has shifted from simply launching tokenized products toward increasing their practical use and distribution.
Benji combines wallet infrastructure, order management, transfer-agent functionality and blockchain-integrated recordkeeping. Franklin Templeton separately describes the platform as the infrastructure supporting its tokenized investment products, including the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund. One BENJI token represents one share of FOBXX, while the fund’s transfer agent maintains the official ownership record through its blockchain-integrated system.
Tokenized Funds Move From Issuance Toward Utility
Karkhanis said the next stage of tokenization will depend partly on making existing products useful in additional financial workflows. Franklin has already expanded Benji beyond basic fund ownership through peer-to-peer transfers, intraday yield functionality and institutional collateral arrangements. The broader objective is to make regulated tokenized assets transferable and financially productive without separating them from their underlying compliance requirements.
That distinction also shapes Pendle’s institutional strategy. The protocol separates yield-bearing assets into Principal Tokens and Yield Tokens, creating markets for fixed returns and future yield. Its broader roadmap increasingly positions Pendle as onchain rates infrastructure, including planned permissioned markets intended to accommodate assets with stricter participation requirements.
The Franklin conversation follows Pendle’s first RWA Insights episode with Partners Group and Asseto, which focused on NGI+, a tokenized exposure linked to private infrastructure investments. Together, the discussions highlight a progression from putting traditional assets onchain toward creating markets around their yield, collateral value and liquidity.
Karkhanis also emphasized that institutional DeFi integration will depend on how products are distributed and who can access them. Structured products for qualified or accredited investors may fit more readily into onchain vault structures, while retail products face additional requirements around standardized risk disclosures and regulatory oversight.
Pendle Adds More RWA-Linked Yield Markets
The editorial push coincides with continued expansion of Pendle’s RWA-related markets. The protocol recently introduced a USDG market on Robinhood Chain with a March 2027 maturity and renewed AUSD exposure on Monad with a December 2026 maturity. These markets extend Pendle’s yield-separation model to assets linked to Treasury-backed stablecoin infrastructure rather than purely crypto-native staking yield.
Pendle says its broader RWA stack now exceeds $1 billion in TVL and includes categories ranging from tokenized equities and Treasuries to private infrastructure and credit-related assets. That figure is a protocol-reported snapshot rather than evidence that the same amount represents new institutional capital, and individual markets vary considerably in liquidity and usage.
Franklin Templeton’s participation also fits a wider expansion of its digital-asset activities, including using BENJI within its broader institutional crypto strategy. The relevant shift is increasingly from token creation toward financial utility, as asset managers, issuers and DeFi protocols test whether regulated securities can support collateral, fixed-rate markets and other programmable uses after issuance.
Pendle’s RWA Insights series therefore documents a question that is becoming more operational than theoretical: not whether traditional assets can be tokenized, but whether they can develop sufficient liquidity, compliant distribution and onchain utility to function as part of a broader financial market.