Asset classes are the business categories, such as Fixed income or Cash, that organise your product catalogue. The classes you keep visible decide what the rest of your organisation sees: the classification choices when someone designs an instrument template, the groups of the template catalogue, the entries under Assets in the sidebar, the “Value by asset class” chart on Asset insights and on the “Insights” tab of Portfolio, and the “Allocation” block on the portfolio Dashboard. A class never changes how an issued token behaves. Compliance and settlement read the token's own policy and features.
Open this screen to plan the catalogue before your organisation designs instrument templates, or when your product lineup outgrows the categories the platform ships with, for example when private credit needs its own grouping. Issuing an asset does not need it, and the template wizard's classification step can create a class without leaving the wizard, for the same roles that can write here.
A class is either a system class or a custom class, and the Source column badges each row “System” or “Custom”. Nine system classes ship with the platform, with fixed names and descriptions, and most of them pin the base asset types their templates may use, as System classes and the base types they allow lists. A custom class belongs to your organisation, accepts any base asset type, and can be renamed, hidden or deleted. Every create, rename, hide and delete of a class lands in the organisation's audit trail, with who made it and their platform and organisation role at the time.
The table lists each asset class with its name and slug, a System or Custom badge under Source, and whether it is hidden.
“Show hidden” and “View” sit above the table, and Add asset class appears above it for roles that can manage the catalogue.
Steps
Open Asset classes
- In the sidebar, open “Asset design”, then Asset classes.
- The table lists the visible classes sorted by name, with the slug under each name, and the “Source” and “Hidden” columns. “Slug” and “Description” are hidden by default, and View shows them. Search with “Search asset classes…”, or filter by “Source” to list System or Custom classes only.
- To see the hidden set, select Show hidden. The table then lists the hidden classes only.
Add a class
Prefer an existing system class when your product fits one, because it carries platform-maintained naming and keeps templates on the base asset types that match it. Create a custom class when your taxonomy differs, or when the product needs a base type its system class would refuse.
- Select Add asset class. A sheet opens.
- Enter a Name and, optionally, a “Description”. The Console derives a URL-safe slug from the name, and “Create” stays unavailable while the name yields no slug.
- Enter a Reason (optional) to record why in the audit trail.
- Select Create.
The Add asset class sheet shows Name, Description and Reason (optional) fields, with Cancel and Create buttons.
Adding or renaming a class is refused when its slug belongs to a system class or to another class of your organisation. A name such as Equity or Yield instruments is refused with a duplicate-name message from the error catalogue, because a system class already holds its slug, and so is Trade Finance when trade finance exists. The existing class keeps its name and description. A name made only of punctuation cannot be saved, because it yields no slug. Accented Latin letters fold to plain ones, so Café gives cafe.
Edit a custom class
- In the row of a custom class, open the row menu behind the three-dot button at the end of the row. System classes have no Edit item.
- Select Edit. The “Edit asset class” sheet opens with the same fields.
- Change the “Name” or “Description”, and select Save.
Renaming a class also regenerates its slug, and the class's template URLs move to the new slug.
Hide or delete a class
Hide a class when the grouping might return, or when it is a system class, which can never be deleted. Hiding is per organisation, keeps every template's assignment, and one menu choice reverses it. Delete only a custom class you are retiring for good.
- To hide a class, select Hide in its row menu. Select “Make visible” on a hidden class to bring it back.
- Before you delete a custom class, assign each of its templates to another class. Filter the Instrument templates catalogue by Asset class to list them. A deleted class leaves its templates without a class and out of asset issuance until someone edits each one.
- Select Delete in the class's row menu. The “Delete asset class?” dialog warns that the action cannot be undone. Select “Delete asset class” to confirm.
What hiding or deleting changes
Hiding or deleting a class takes effect for everyone in your organisation at once. The class disappears from the classification choices in the template wizard, templates that belong to it drop out of the “Issue asset” template library, and its entry drops out of the “Assets” section of the sidebar, because both group templates by visible class. Issued assets, their holders and their balances do not change.
Hiding can be reversed and deleting cannot, and both change where templates and their assets are offered and grouped, not an issued asset.
System classes and the base types they allow
Derivatives and Yield instruments build on the equity base type, and their behaviour comes from the token features a template adds.
Troubleshooting
There is no Add asset class button
The screen shows “You are not authorized to manage asset classes.” when its role check finds none of the managing roles, for example after your role was removed while the page was open. Ask for the Permission manager, System manager or Asset designer role in this organisation, or ask someone who holds one of those roles to make the change.
Creating a class is refused as a duplicate
The derived slug belongs to a system class or to another class of your organisation. Choose a name that reduces to a different slug, or reuse the existing class.
A class is missing from the table
Select Show hidden to check the hidden set, and confirm you are in the right organisation, because each organisation keeps its own custom classes and its own visibility choices.
Templates vanished from Issue asset
The template library only offers templates whose class is visible. Make the owning class visible again, or, if it was deleted, edit each affected template and assign a replacement class.
Frequently asked questions
Do asset classes change how a token behaves?
No, not once the token exists. Everything on this screen is a design-time record: catalogue membership and visibility. The one place a class reaches further is template design, where eight system classes limit which base asset type their templates may use.
Can a custom class use the same name as a system class?
No. The Console derives a slug from the name and refuses a name whose slug a system class holds, so a custom Equity or Yield instruments is refused, and the message names the slug and says it belongs to a system asset class. Choose a name that differs, such as Listed equity. When a platform release adds a system class whose slug one of your custom classes already used, the platform moves the custom class to a new slug and keeps its name, so you can still see a custom class named like a system class.
Does hiding a class affect other organisations?
No. Visibility is stored per organisation, including for system classes. Hiding Structured in your organisation leaves every other organisation untouched: its pickers and sidebar still show Structured, and so does its template catalogue. Deleting reaches no other organisation either, because you can delete only classes your organisation created, and no other organisation ever saw them.
Do I have to set up classes here before designing templates?
No. The wizard's inline class is the same kind of object you add here: it lands in this table, and you hide or delete it the same way as any other custom class. Use this screen to plan the whole taxonomy up front, tidy visibility or retire classes. The wizard's inline form does none of these.
How do I merge two classes?
No single control merges classes. Edit each template in the class you are retiring and assign the surviving class in its classification step, then hide or delete the emptied class. Reassign first so the affected templates remain available for issuance.
Can I control the order classes appear in?
No. The table, the template wizard's classification choices, and the sidebar all sort classes alphabetically by name, and there is no manual ordering. Renaming a custom class is the only way to move it, and a rename regenerates its slug, as Edit a custom class describes.