Slovenia introduced the Eurozone’s first sovereign digital bond and used the Canton blockchain technology for on-chain settlement.
Through the use of the tokenized currency solution provided by the Banque de France and an on-chain transaction handled by the French banking behemoth BNP Paribas, Slovenia has issued the first sovereign digital bond in the Eurozone.
According to a press statement from BNP Paribas on Friday, the issuance was a part of the European Central Bank’s experimental program for wholesale central bank money settlement. The Canton blockchain-based Neobonds technology from BNP Paribas was used to issue the Slovenian digital bond.
BNP Paribas CIB global head primary markets, Frederic Zorzi said in the release:
“BNP Paribas is committed to contributing to the Eurosystem-led wholesale digital settlement solutions that will make bond settlement more efficient and secure,”
Neobonds, according to BNP Paribas, documented the legal ownership of digital bonds and allowed network users to oversee the operational framework for bond issuance and secondary market trading. The bond has a 3.65% coupon and matures on November 25th.
It has a nominal value of €30 million. The financial technology startup Digital Asset introduced Canton in 2021 to build an interoperable, privacy-enabled blockchain network offering institutional clients a decentralized infrastructure. In addition to BNP Paribas, additional companies on the list of network participants are Deloitte, Microsoft, Cboe Global Markets, and Goldman Sachs.