Slovenia became the first EU country to issue digital bonds. The tokenized securities are issued and managed via the BNP Paribas blockchain solution.
The Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Slovenia issued its first digital bond. The bond has a face value of €30 million ($32.5 million), a coupon of 3.65%, and a maturity date of November 25.
Slovenia issued its digital bond through DLT platform Neobonds by BNP Paribas. It was settled on the blockchain network using wholesale central bank money (CeBM) via the DL3S tokenization solution developed by Banque de France (BDF).
Neobonds is a distributed ledger technology (DLT) solution developed by BNP Paribas based on the Daml smart contract language and running on Digital Asset’s Canton enterprise blockchain.
BNP Paribas was one of the first to test the Canton network after its launch in May 2023 to create a global interbank blockchain network.
The Slovenian Ministry of Finance bond issue is part of the second phase of testing of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) DLT system. This is part of the study of the settlement of wholesale transactions using central bank digital currencies (CBDC) started in June. According to Robinson Rouchié, Chief Investment Officer and Asset Management at BNP Paribas, Slovenia’s digital bond issue and offering was the first in the Eurozone. Philippe Maillard, Chief Operating Officer of BNP Paribas CIB, emphasized that the deal was possible due to BNP Paribas’ integrated and diversified asset management model.
The issue of digital bonds is gaining momentum. Project Evergreen was launched in Hong Kong to explore the benefits of tokenization for bond transactions. The European Investment Bank (EIB) issued tokenized green bonds. Israel and the Philippines successfully issued digital government bonds, and Siemens Corporation issued digital bonds on the Polygon blockchain.
