World Bank Blockchain Bond “Exceeds Expectations”

The world’s first public blockchain-based bond generated “overwhelming” interest, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) claims. The bank is the bond’s sole lead manager, and they said seven investors had shown interest, helping raise AUD 110 million (USD 80.48 million).

The deal is called bond-i, an acronym for Blockchain Operated New Debt Instrument and a reference to Australia’s most famous beach, Bondi. Arunma Oteh, World Bank treasurer, told Reuters, “We are particularly impressed with the breath of interest from official institutions… these high-quality investors understood the value of leveraging technology for innovation in capital markets.”

Investors in the deal included the American fund Northern Trust, three Australian state governments, local pension fund First State Super, and CBA. As Cryptonews.com previously reported, it is reportedly the first bond globally to be created, allocated, transferred and managed using blockchain technology. CBA also said the World Bank bond will be the first time that capital is raised from public investors through a legally valid bond issuance that uses blockchain from start to finish.

Although bond-i may be the first to tick all these boxes, it certainly is not the completely first, as there have been other prototypes or parallel simulation blockchain projects in the market before.

These include the Thailand Bond Market Association looking into issuing bonds using blockchain technology. In addition to that, Sberbank CIB, a subsidiary of Russian banking giant Sberbank, said in May it has successfully conducted Russia’s first ever blockchain-powered commercial bond transaction.