Thailand's central bank has teamed up with IBM to launch the world's first blockchain-based platform for government savings bonds, issuing a total of $1.6 billion within two weeks.
Government bonds dominate the Thai market, with outstanding value of $157 billion in 2019, accounting for 37% of the total outstanding bond market.
IBM says that until now the sale of these products 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.
Big Blue claims that its blockchain and cloud technology has streamlined the process for issuers, underwriters, registrars, investors, providing an immutable, real-time single source of truth for network participants, which minimises 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.
"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," says Patama Chantaruck, VP, Indochina Expansion and MD, IBM Thailand.