Daimler AG Issues €100 Million Corporate Bond in Blockchain Trial

German automaker Daimler AG has issued a corporate bond worth €100m as part of a blockchain pilot project.

The carmaker announced the completed test today, working alongside Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), Germany's largest state-backed wholesale banks group, to create a testbed for issuing the one-year corporate bond known as a Schuldschein.

The test also included a trio of savings banks based in Esslingen-Nürtingen, Ludwigsburg and Ostalb, respectively, who along with LBBW simulated lenders within the prototype system.

According to Daimler, the entire transaction cycle – from origination, distribution, allocation and execution of the loan agreement, to the confirmation of repayment and of interest payments – was automated digitally through the blockchain network. Lending technical support were the IT subsidiaries of Daimler and LBBW, which also adopted the blockchain's cryptographic signature to prevent manipulation of transactions.

Daimler and LBBW are now looking at other applications, including the issuance of syndicated loans by way of a distributed ledger.

The test comes months after Daimler linked up with the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger blockchain project. As CoinDesk reported in February, the automaker joined the initiative as part of a broader bid to explore possible uses.

"We see blockchain as a promising technology, not fully mature yet, but continuously growing. Now is the right time to get into it, build up knowledge and form a network of like-minded people to share experiences," Jan Brecht, Daimler's CIO, said at the time.

Image Credit: Tadeas Skuhra / Shutterstock.com