Brazil’s Second-Largest Private Bank Launches First Tokenized Credit Note

This article is adapted from CoinDesk Brasil, a partnership between CoinDesk and InfoMoney, one of Brazil's leading financial news publications. Follow CoinDesk Brasil on Twitter.

Bradesco, Brazil's second-largest private bank, launched its first tokenized bank credit note on Friday.

The bank completed the transaction for a total of 10 million Brazilian reals – equivalent to $1.95 million – under a regulatory sandbox run by the Central Bank of Brazil, the company said in a statement, adding that it was the first financial market tokenization operation regulated by that monetary authority.

Other banks have also recently embarked on the Brazilian tokenization market. In December, also as part of the Brazilian Central Bank's sandbox, Santander issued 40 million Brazilian reals (US$7.8 million) in tokenized bonds to Indigo, a parking management company.

In July 2022, Itaú Unibanco, Brazil's largest private bank, announced the launch of its own tokenization platform, Itaú Digital Assets. In addition to tokenization, the firm also provides crypto custody and token as a service (TaaS) products.

This article was translated by Andrés Engler and edited by CoinDesk. The original Portuguese can be found here.

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