The World Bank has indeed initiated its first ‘Blockchain Bond’ with Commonwealth Bank of Australia(CBA).
This means that World Bank has offered New-Debt instrument called bond-i and this bond will be created, managed with distributed ledger technology. Also, the bond-i is named after the iconic spot, called Bondi beach located in Sydney, Australia.
Every year the World Bank issues around $50 – $60 billion worth bonds which are essentially focused on the development-related activities into international capital markets. The very intention behind such programs is to achieve a positive impact in the international financial market.
As per reports from joint release, the bank believes that Blockchain has great potential to transform the capital market and further elaborates that,
“Blockchain has the potential to streamline processes among numerous debt capital market intermediaries and agents. This can help simplify raising capital and trading securities; improve operational efficiencies; and enhance regulatory oversight“
Also, the CIO of World Bank Group Denis Robitaille highlighted that
“Helping countries transition to technology-led development is key to our goals of reducing poverty and promoting lasting development. This is at the heart of the World Bank’s ‘Innovation Lab’ “
Essentially, the bank opines that other issuing banks to come up with their own blockchain-based bonds. In this regard, Paul Snaith, World Bank’s manager of treasury asset and liability operations stated that,
“Already some central banks are assessing how they can use blockchain for settling transactions”
With respect to bond, a private Ethereum based Blockchain will be used by the project and jointly run by both CBA and the World Bank. Additionally, this project will be deployed on Microsoft’s Cloud Platform Azure and the same was validated by the company regarding operational capabilities.
It’s well-known fact that blockchain by its very nature eliminates many third party related activities and hence promotes faster transactions. Experts in Blockchain field affirms on the same lines but few seem to be concerned amid hype around the technology’s potential that the intense fanfare could potentially lead to a bubble.
Will this blockchain bond turn out to be a game changer in the financial industry? Share your thoughts in below comment section.
