What happened? MQube has tokenized £1.3bn of mortgage debt on an EVM-compatible blockchain, a European first.
Its lending arm, MPowered Mortgages, placed the mortgage assets on-chain to improve data integrity, security and traceability. The company says this move can streamline transfers between lenders, cut legal costs and enable on-chain mortgage securitization.
Who does this affect? Lenders, borrowers and institutional investors are the main groups impacted.
Lenders and building societies could free up capital and issue more loans thanks to improved liquidity, while borrowers might benefit from lower costs and more product variety. Institutional investors and tokenization platforms gain access to tradable mortgage pools, and regulators and legacy servicers will need to adapt to new operational and compliance models.
Why does this matter? Tokenizing mortgages could unlock huge market liquidity and change how mortgages are financed and traded.
Making mortgage debt tradable on-chain can lower funding costs, speed up securitization and compress spreads, which would be material for mortgage pricing and availability. Research estimates tokenized real-world assets could address a massive tradfi market (hundreds of trillions in scope), so early deals like this could accelerate institutional adoption and reshape capital markets.