Canada Tests Tokenized Bond Settlement With Central Bank Money
The Bank of Canada successfully completed a pilot project, Project Samara, which involved issuing and settling a $100 million tokenized bond on a distributed ledger using central bank money. The platform enabled instant atomic settlement, improved workflows, and reduced counterparty risk, though it also highlighted operational and regulatory challenges. This initiative marks a significant step toward modernizing bond markets with blockchain technology.
TLDR The Bank of Canada completed a pilot for settling a live tokenized bond using central bank deposits. Export Development Canada issued a 100 million dollar bond on the Samara Platform. The platform enabled instant settlement through atomic transactions on a distributed ledger infrastructure. Participants reported improved workflows and reduced counterparty and settlement risk. The pilot also identified operational complexity and regulatory alignment challenges. The Bank of Canada has completed a live pilot that tested digital bond issuance on distributed ledger infrastructure. The central bank worked with RBC Capital Markets, TD Bank Group, and Export Development Canada on the initiative. The project executed a $100 million bond using central bank money for trading and settlement. Project Samara Tests Tokenized Bond Issuance On-chain The Bank of Canada led Project Samara in partnership with RBC Capital Markets, TD Bank Group, and Export Development Canada. The participants built the Samara Platform on Hyperledger Fabric to support end-to-end bond transactions. The platform processed issuance, bidding, coupon payments, redemption, and secondary trading within a unified framework. Export Development Canada issued a $100 million tokenized bond during the pilot. The platform traded and settled the bond using central bank deposits instead of commercial bank money. The system integrated separate bond and cash ledgers to enable atomic settlement. As a result, the platform completed transactions instantly and reduced counterparty exposure. The architecture allowed secondary trading directly on-chain between approved participants. Therefore, the system removed traditional delays between trade execution and final settlement. Participants reported improved operational workflows and stronger data integrity during the trial. They also confirmed that the system automates reconciliation across counterparties. Ron Morrow, Executive Director of Payments, Supervision, and Over...
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