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Ctrl Alt Completes a Four Jurisdiction Licence Set for Tokenisation With Guernsey Authorisation

Writer: Shawn Jhanji
Shawn Jhanji
4 hours ago
3 min read
Standfirst: The London based tokenisation platform has spent the summer methodically collecting fiduciary and transfer agency licences across four jurisdictions, a strategy that says as much about the shape of the tokenised asset market as any single product launch would. Ctrl Alt Technologies has been authorised by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission to provide fiduciary and digital transfer agency services, the fourth regulatory licence the London based tokenisation firm has secured globally. The licences were confirmed in August and were flagged to Tokenising Startups as worth revisiting for what they reveal about how tokenisation infrastructure actually gets built, one jurisdiction at a time. They sit alongside Ctrl Alt's existing authorisations from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, where it was the first provider authorised to conduct issuer services, and the Central Bank of Ireland. The two Guernsey licences, a Fiduciary Licence and a Protection of Investors Licence, are held by a newly established entity, Ctrl Alt Corporate Services. The Fiduciary Licence covers corporate administration, directorship and governance for the vehicles Ctrl Alt uses to structure tokenised assets. The Protection of Investors Licence lets the firm act as registrar and digital transfer agent for investment fund and vehicle interests, covering subscription, administration and registration. Matt Ong, founder and chief executive of Ctrl Alt, said the firm had been operating in Guernsey for some time and that the island's depth in investment funds and corporate services, alongside constructive engagement from the GFSC on digital finance, made it a natural choice for a fourth authorisation. Why this matters more than a single licence announcement suggests is the pattern behind it. Ctrl Alt has not simply built a tokenisation platform and gone looking for one regulator willing to approve it. It has assembled, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, the specific regulatory permissions needed to run the full lifecycle of a tokenised asset: issuance and structuring in Ireland and the UK, distribution through Dubai's VARA framework, and now fiduciary administration and registrar functions in Guernsey, a jurisdiction with decades of experience servicing offshore funds and corporate vehicles. That matters because the hardest problem in tokenisation has never really been the token.

Standfirst: The London based tokenisation platform has spent the summer methodically collecting fiduciary and transfer agency licences across four jurisdictions, a strategy that says as much about the shape of the tokenised asset market as any single product launch would.


Ctrl Alt Technologies has been authorised by the Guernsey Financial Services Commission to provide fiduciary and digital transfer agency services, the fourth regulatory licence the London based tokenisation firm has secured globally. The licences were confirmed in August and were flagged to Tokenising Startups as worth revisiting for what they reveal about how tokenisation infrastructure actually gets built, one jurisdiction at a time. They sit alongside Ctrl Alt's existing authorisations from the UK Financial Conduct Authority, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, where it was the first provider authorised to conduct issuer services, and the Central Bank of Ireland.


The two Guernsey licences, a Fiduciary Licence and a Protection of Investors Licence, are held by a newly established entity, Ctrl Alt Corporate Services. The Fiduciary Licence covers corporate administration, directorship and governance for the vehicles Ctrl Alt uses to structure tokenised assets. The Protection of Investors Licence lets the firm act as registrar and digital transfer agent for investment fund and vehicle interests, covering subscription, administration and registration.


Matt Ong, founder and chief executive of Ctrl Alt, said the firm had been operating in Guernsey for some time and that the island's depth in investment funds and corporate services, alongside constructive engagement from the GFSC on digital finance, made it a natural choice for a fourth authorisation.


Why this matters more than a single licence announcement suggests is the pattern behind it. Ctrl Alt has not simply built a tokenisation platform and gone looking for one regulator willing to approve it. It has assembled, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, the specific regulatory permissions needed to run the full lifecycle of a tokenised asset: issuance and structuring in Ireland and the UK, distribution through Dubai's VARA framework, and now fiduciary administration and registrar functions in Guernsey, a jurisdiction with decades of experience servicing offshore funds and corporate vehicles.


That matters because the hardest problem in tokenisation has never

really been the token.


Wrapping an asset in a smart contract is the easy part. The difficult part is persuading regulators, auditors and institutional counterparties that the digital register is a reliable substitute for, or complement to, the traditional paper trail of directors, registrars and fund administrators. By licensing itself as a fiduciary and transfer agent rather than simply partnering with an existing one, Ctrl Alt is betting that owning that regulated infrastructure directly, across several jurisdictions at once, is a more durable moat than any particular blockchain or token standard.


Context: This is also a live illustration of a problem Tokenising Startups has tracked closely in UK private markets. When we started to examine the reconciliation between tokenised SEIS shares and Companies House, the open question was which structures satisfy both HMRC and the FCA that a nominee or custody arrangement genuinely represents the underlying legal holding. Ctrl Alt's approach, stacking fiduciary licences on top of issuer and distribution permissions in multiple jurisdictions, is one answer to that question, even if its current work is inward facing rather than aimed specifically at the UK SEIS market. It does show that regulated fiduciary and transfer agency capability is being treated by serious platforms as core infrastructure, not an afterthought bolted on once a token has already been issued.


Key Takeaways:


  • Ctrl Alt has secured its fourth global regulatory licence, adding Guernsey fiduciary and digital transfer agency permissions to existing UK, Dubai and Irish authorisations.

  • The Guernsey licences are held by a new entity, Ctrl Alt Corporate Services, and cover corporate administration, governance, registrar and digital transfer agency functions.

  • The jurisdiction by jurisdiction licensing strategy suggests regulated custody and registrar infrastructure, not the token technology itself, is where tokenisation platforms are choosing to compete.

  • The approach is directly relevant to the unresolved question of what custody and nominee structures will satisfy both HMRC and the FCA for tokenised UK private company shares.

  • Initially the Guernsey functions are inward facing, supporting Ctrl Alt's own tokenised funds and vehicles, rather than offered as a standalone third party service.


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