The World Bank, through blockchain, raised over $33 million for Australian dollar-denominated bonds. The organization claims to be the first bond to be created, placed, transferred and managed using distributed registry technology.
The initiative is an extension of the current blockchain platform of the World Bank's Bond-i and is conducted in cooperation with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities (TD). Also, a number of new market participants, including foreign investors, were attracted to participate in it.
The CBA was appointed by the World Bank last August as a bondholder, with the help of which they managed to raise over $74 million. In May, the CBA and the World Bank realized the opportunity to trade such bonds in the secondary market and attracted TD as a market maker.
"This is an important achievement to demonstrate the ability to manage the full lifecycle of meeting the needs of issuers in capital markets. It is also a significant step in attracting additional participants to the platform and demonstrating the broader potential of Bond-i as a capital markets platform," said James Wall, CBA general manager.
According to the project participants, the platform enables faster, more efficient and secure transactions. It is part of the World Bank's Distributed Register Technology plan.
In April, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank released their own cryptocurrency to explore the possibilities of the technology.