Slovenia made history as the first European Union member to issue a digital bond, with a 30 million euro ($32.5 million) note paid on-chain through the Bank of France's tokenized cash system.
Slovenia Becomes the First European Union Country to Issue Government-Owned Digital Bonds
This milestone is part of the European Central Bank's (ECB) currency settlement experiment programme, coordinated by BNP Paribas.
Four-month bonds with a coupon rate of 3.65% will mature on November 25. According to the Slovenian government, the payment took place on Thursday in wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Unlike retail CBDCs designed for consumer use, wholesale CBDCs are digital tokens intended for financial institutions.
In May, the ECB completed its first test of wholesale CBDC settlements and announced plans for additional trials and experiments.
The first experiment, conducted by the Austrian National Bank, focused on the tokenization of government bonds in exchange for central bank money in a secondary market transaction and simulated delivery-versus-payment settlement.
The Slovenian government said: “These first transactions and experiments with wholesale tokenized central bank money are an important step towards greater transparency and efficiency of financial markets through wider adoption of the technology.
“While the value currently exported and traded is modest, we expect significant growth in the importance of distributed ledger technology in the coming years,” he said.
BNP Paribas served as global coordinator and sole bookrunner for the bond issuance. The bank also operated Neobonds, a distributed ledger technology platform built using Digital Asset's Daml and Canton blockchain.
This groundbreaking move by Slovenia highlights the potential of digital financial instruments to increase market transparency and efficiency and sets a precedent for other EU countries.
*This is not investment advice.
