British investment managers call for the blockchain-traded funds' approval

cointelegraph.com:

The Investment Association, a trade body representing British investment managers, is speeding up the local government and financial regulators to approve blockchain-traded funds with digital tokens substituting traditional shares. 

As the Financial Times reported on Thursday, the trade body is pushing the government to establish a new class of funds employing blockchain technology and create a new task force to examine how distributed ledger technology could accelerate the creation of new products and services.

The reasons behind such a push, according to the Investment Association, are the possible significant cost savings for end investors and the simplification of the existing procedures of buying and selling mutual funds.

Investment Association chief executive Chris Cummings urged to boost the competitiveness of the national financial services: 

According to FT, blockchain-traded funds could become available by the end of the second quarter of 2023 if the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) would give its regulatory approval. As the newspaper adds, a financial technology group FundAdminChain is currently collaborating with the London Stock Exchange and four global asset managers to develop live tokenized funds for the British market.

Related: Majority of British crypto owners revealed to be hodlers

Brian McNulty, CEO at FundAdminChain, revealed that asset managers have realized the potential to generate market-beating returns via tokenization of funds:

The Investment Association also lobbies the FCA to regard the possibility of allowing traditional mutual funds to own cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. But should the FCA get interested in this proposition, it would still require a full consultation to push it