In August, Shanghai-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) issued $300 million of Digital Native Notes (DNN) using Euroclear’s D-FMI platform. The recent tap issuance of $200 million brings the total amount of digital bonds to $500 million. The issuance is part of the AIIB Sustainable Bonds Programme.
We believe that this extension will put AIIB bonds among the top five digital bonds issued globally. KfW leads with two major digital bonds. The German bank expanded its 4 billion euro issuance in June to 5 billion euros in September, and issued another 3 billion euros of digital bonds this month. In third place was Hong Kong’s $756 million sovereign digital green bond issued in February, which was technically issued multiple times in different currencies. At that time, it was the largest issue issued in Hong Kong. Ledger Insights Research plans to publish data on digital bond issuance in the near future.
As with the initial issue, the joint lead managers for AIIB Tap were BMO Capital Markets and Citi. Citi is also the issuing and paying agent and the bonds are listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
To ensure liquidity, we have integrated our digital bond issuance platform D-FMI with traditional payment systems. This means that investors do not need to have up-to-date information on DLT to purchase bonds. SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) is the first bond issuance platform to take this step.
Meanwhile, Euroclear’s D-FMI platform is based on R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain. For more information about AIIB and its activities, please see the August Bond Issuance Report.
