Blockchain-Based Bonds Worth $2.8 Billion Issued In China

Blockchain-based bonds worth $2.8 billion or 20 billion yuan were issued by the Bank of China for small and micro-sized enterprises with their blockchain platforms. In our blockchain latest news today, we see about the bank’s latest announcements.

The bank stated that it completed pricing and issuing the blockchain-based bonds for the first period this week and the two-year bond that will come to the market with a 3.25% coupon rate as per the statements. The bank aims to raise the funds to support the smaller businesses:

 “We have used our own blockchain-based bond issuance system in the process,”  the bank said in the statement. “This is also the first bond issuance ledger system that is based on blockchain in the country.”

The bank also used its own blockchain system to issue digital certificates that prove ownership or form groups and document the proof of transactions as well. Issuing the blockchain-based bonds is a part of the country’s effort to support entrepreneurs with more efficient access to capital. The bank lent up to 404 billion yuan as of September which is $57.7 billion to more than 410,000 small and micro-sized businesses as the bank said.

By financing for smaller and medium-sized businesses, the Bank of China really wants to prove that it is one of the major blockchain use cases for banks and financial services companies in the country. The industrial and Commerce Bank of China, which is the largest bank by assets in the world, started offering factoring services including transactions where the businesses sell account receivables to someone else at a discount in return for quick cash payments, to the smaller enterprises on the blockchain platform in February 2018.

The fintech arm of tech giant Alibaba– Ant Financial, announced it would launch its own blockchain platform that will provide the smaller businesses and enterprises with more reliable financial services in three months. Beyond China, the Spanish banking giant Santander also issued $20 million bonds which trade on Ethereum in September in order to speed up the bond issuance process. China, however, is going hard into blockchain technology and starts embracing more and more projects and platforms.