Bank of Canada Completes Tokenized Bond Pilot with Mixed Results
The Bank of Canada has completed its Project Samara, a blockchain experiment that issued Canada's first tokenized bond on a distributed ledger platform.
The pilot found operational efficiency gains but warned that broader adoption will be slow due to integration challenges and gaps in the regulatory framework.
The BoC built Samara on Hyperledger Fabric to handle the full bond lifecycle, including issuance, bidding, coupon payments, redemptions, and secondary trading. TD Bank served as joint lead manager, and RBC Investor Services provided bond reconciliation.
The experiment demonstrated operational efficiency gains, improved data integrity, and reduced counterparty and settlement risk. However, these benefits were partially offset by increased system complexity and liquidity costs.