Apex Group Joins Hedera Council to Push Tokenized Settlement

Apex Group has joined the Hedera Council, the governance body of the public blockchain network. The global financial services provider, which oversees more than $3.5 trillion in assets, brings fund administration, digital assets and institutional market infrastructure experience with it. Apex plans to explore Hedera for its tokenization and digital asset work, including asset lifecycle management, compliance and settlement.

Marco Infuso, Apex's head of digital assets for Central Europe, framed compliance as the make-or-break factor. Institutional tokenization will scale only when compliance is embedded across the asset lifecycle rather than added afterward, he said. That principle, he added, drives Apex's use of ERC-3643, a standard for compliant tokenization, and lets clients hold assets in traditional or tokenized form with consistent controls.

The Hedera tie-up sits on top of Apex's existing blockchain push. Its Tokeny unit partnered with Polygon to build a chain for permissioned ERC-3643 tokens, with Apex acting as the initial onchain transfer agent. Apex also teamed with World Liberty Financial to test USD1 stablecoin infrastructure in fund administration, including subscriptions and redemptions for tokenized funds, and in 2024 helped launch institutional ETH and SOL staking exchange-traded products on the SIX Swiss Exchange.

Mance Harmon, chair of the Hedera Council, said Apex pairs deep private-market servicing expertise with a clear digital assets vision. He called the addition a strengthening of the Council at a pivotal moment, as institutional tokenization shifts from experimentation to real-world adoption.