Blockchain-based Bonds: What Potential for the Public Sector? 2023 | Global Government Forum | 23 March 2023 | Webinar

This event is a digital ledger of information about transactions – is growing in prominence across financial services. Governments and the public sector are also tuning in to this emerging technology’s benefits, such as increasing automation and transparency, as well as the reduction of administrative costs.

Examples of supranational and national initiatives in the field of government/public authority bonds are growing in number.

The World Bank launched bond-i – the world’s first bond to be created, allocated, transferred and managed through its life cycle using distributed ledger technology (DLT) – in 2018. The European Investment Bank (EIB) issued its first digital bond on a public blockchain in 2021 (partnering Banque de France).

At a national level a blockchain-based reporting system involving Poland’s Ministry of Finance was launched to track Polish treasury savings bonds in December 2020. In 2021 German financial authorities successfully tested the use of DLT to settle electronic securities in a trial involving six major international banks. Israel’s Ministry of Finance and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) announced in October 2022 that they are to pilot the issuance of state bonds on blockchain. The UK government, which has been exploring blockchain technology to improve public services since 2016, is among the other governments worldwide looking into how DLT can be applied to the government bond issuance.

In a more specific area, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub has been exploring blockchain for green bonds alongside the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HMKA).

This Global Government Fintech webinar will ask:
• Why would governments want to use blockchain for bonds?
• What are the cross-cutting reasons to do so and what are specific examples? (for example related to the environmental/climate-change agenda)
• What are the obstacles to further exploration and implementation?

2023 Speaker

CHAIR:

Ian Hall
Editor, Global Government Fintech