Transfer agent
A regulated entity that maintains the official record of a security's owners and processes issuance, transfers, redemptions and corporate actions for the issuer.
A transfer agent keeps the master securityholder file for an issuer: who owns how many shares or units. It records transfers, cancels and issues certificates or book entries, and handles dividends, distributions and other corporate actions. In the United States, transfer agents for registered securities must register with the SEC or a bank regulator.
In tokenization, the transfer agent often decides whether the blockchain record is the legal record of ownership. Some agents keep the official register onchain, so a token transfer is itself the legal transfer; others reconcile an onchain record to an offchain book.
For allocators this determines legal certainty: if the token and the register disagree, the register prevails. Example: Securitize acts as an SEC-registered transfer agent for tokenized funds it issues, and Franklin Templeton serves as its own transfer agent for its onchain money market fund.
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Part of the BlockWest Glossary, plain-language definitions for markets, AI and digital assets. Educational content, not investment advice.