$1.6B USD in government savings bonds were successfully sold within a week of launch
IBM announced that Bank of Thailand (BOT), the central bank, has successfully launched the world’s first blockchain-based platform for government savings bonds issuing a total of $1.6B USD within two weeks.
Leveraging blockchain technology on the highly secured IBM Cloud, the platform allows investors to benefit from speedy bond issuance, reducing a process that previously took 15 days to two days. The efficiency provided by blockchain also reduces operational complexity and the overall cost of issuing bonds.
Read More: Security Breeds Prosperity, KuCoin Launched “Safeguard Program”
According to The Thai Bond Market Association, the outstanding Thai bond market stood at $421B USD as of December 2019. Government bonds dominate the Thai market, with outstanding value of $157B USD in 2019 1, accounting for 37% of the total outstanding Thai bond market.
In the past, the sale of government savings bonds was a complex, multiparty, time-consuming process that relied on a non-real-time system, with duplicated validation steps and manual reconciliation prone to data errors.
As blockchain technology streamlines the processes of bond issuance for issuers, underwriters, registrars, investors and key ecosystem participants, the government savings bond platform now becomes an immutable, real-time single source of truth for network participants, which minimizes the redundant validation and reduces the costs of reconciliation. In addition, Thai investors can now purchase bonds up to the maximum value of their individual allocated quota from a single bank.
Read More: InvestEdge Acquired by Featheringill Capital
The effort to develop a secure and efficient government bond infrastructure involved collaboration among eight institutions including BOT, Public Debt Management Office, Thailand Securities Depository Co., Ltd, Thai Bond Market Association and selling-agent banks, including Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Kasikorn Bank, and Siam Commercial Bank, with IBM Blockchain as technology and cloud platform partner.
The benefits and business value of using blockchain technology for government bond distribution is shared across stakeholders, and include faster bond issuance for investors, decreased workloads and processing time for issuers, underwriters and registrars, as well as greater transparency and reduced operating costs across the entire value chain.
“Bank of Thailand’s success with the government savings bond project is the latest example of how blockchain technology can redefine the way businesses operate by simplifying complex processes resulting in fast, transparent, secured and efficient multiparty collaboration,” said Patama Chantaruck, VP for Indochina Expansion and MD of IBM Thailand. “IBM is proud to bring our world-class blockchain platform and IBM Cloud to support Bank of Thailand, and work side-by-side with them in achieving this important milestone for Thailand’s financial industry.”
Read More: Nacha Adopts Rules for the Ongoing Modernization of ACH Payments
