Earlier this month MegaFon, a major Russian mobile operator, announced the completion of a 500 million ruble (around $8.6 million) bond issue with Blockchain settlement. The entire issue was purchased by Raiffeisenbank.
The system, which was developed in the course of this year, is intended for bond placement and circulation of digitized assets, making accounting for transactions simple and transparent. Participants in transactions can exchange and sign documents in real time, and track transactions.
“We have become the first in Russia and among the first in the world to place blockchain-settled commercial bonds,” commented Gevork Vermishyan, MegaFon’s CFO.
The deal, which “exemplifies MegaFon’s efforts to demonstrate its leading role in the development of a digital economy in Russia,” was a testbed for the technology rather than a commercial project, Vermishyan told the Russian media.
“We were pleased to work with National Settlement Depository [an early adopter of the Blockchain technology in Russia] and Raiffeisenbank to take the first steps in the digital transformation of the Russian securities market,” he added.
“This milestone deal is the first important step in testing the broad spectrum of opportunities using the Blockchain technology on the Russian securities market,” said Andrey Popov, head of the IT Directorate and board member at Raiffeisenbank.
However, he noted, “the legislative framework in this area in Russia is still to be fine-tuned.”
This past summer German automaker Daimler A issued a corporate bond worth €100 million as part of a pilot Blockchain project. The project, one of the first of its kind in the world, was executed in cooperation with Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Germany’s largest state-backed wholesale bank group.
Sources: MegaFon, Interfax, Automotive World.
