Bank of Canada Completes DLT-Based Bond Issuance Experiment (BOC)
The Bank of Canada (BOC) published a paper on the Project Samara live experiment where Export Development Corporation (EDC) issued a Canadian dollar (CAD) bond on a permissioned distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform and settled it in wholesale central bank digital money (W‑CAD), to test end‑to‑end tokenized issuance, T+0 atomic delivery-versus-settlement (DvP) settlement, secondary trading, and lifecycle management on a shared infrastructure. Built on Hyperledger Fabric with separate bond and cash ledgers linked by Hyperledger Weaver hash time lock contracts (HTLCs), the platform consolidates workflows that in traditional CAD markets span multiple intermediaries and systems. The project confirms technical feasibility and shows meaningful efficiency and risk‑management gains from automation, reduced reconciliation, real‑time positions, and atomic settlement. However, it finds higher liquidity costs, added operational and governance complexity, new key‑management and cyber risks, and significant legal/regulatory frictions. [BOC]
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I produce a monthly digest of digital fiat currency (DFC) developments exclusively for the official sector (e.g., central banks, ministries of finance and international financial institution (e.g., the BIS, IMF, OECD, World Bank)) plus academics and firms that are active in the DFC space (commercial banks, technology providers, consultants, etc.). (DFCs include central bank digital currency (CBDC), stablecoins and tokenized deposits.) It goes out via email on the first business day of every month, and if you’re interested in being on the mailing list, please email me at john@kiffmeister.com.
