ABN Amro has become the first bank in Europe to register a digital bond for a Midcorp client on the public blockchain.
Issued to a select group of investors, the fully digital process raised €450,000 on behalf of aircraft part-out company APOC, one of the bank’s commercial clients.
Ownership was recorded on the blockchain in the form of tokens that the investors acquired after they had paid for the bond.
The Dutch bank worked with Bitbond on the project and engaged with Fireblocks for the creation of a digital wallet to hold client keys for accessing the bond.
ABN Amro had gained previous experience with digital bonds when it purchased a digital bond from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for reselling. The bank says it can now draw on that knowledge for client propositions, with APOC being the first.
ABN Amro’s chief strategy & innovation Edwin van Bommel says: “This updated digital solution for providing our medium-sized and larger commercial clients with leveraged financing fills a gap between traditional bonds and crowdfunding. Thanks to the blockchain, it’s highly efficient and very client-friendly.”
He says work is already underway for the issuance of further digital bonds to institutional clients in Germany and in the Netherlands.