5 relevant tokenisation projects

European Investment Bank

[2021] 

This is the big tokenisation project of recent years. SG-Forge (a subsidiary of Société Générale), Santander and Goldman Sachs have collaborated with the European Investment Bank to issue a €100 million bond on the Ethereum public blockchain (maturity 2 years). This operation has paved the way for significant operational gains (see interview with Jean-Marc Stenger, CEO of SG-Forge). 

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EDF

[2022] 

Much smaller (€100,000), this experiment involved issuing tokenised bonds to simplify the financing of environmental projects. Here, BNP Paribas and EDF ENR (an EDF subsidiary specialising in support for the energy transition) have financed a solar energy project. The environmental and social data on the bond has been incorporated into the token, making it easier for investors to verify the ESG impact of the security. In addition, tokenisation makes it possible to help finance small-scale projects that institutional players are disinterested in. 

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JP Morgan

[2022] ‍

In another interesting case, US investment bank JPMorgan tokenised bonds for placement in Aave Arc, a 'permissioned' version of the Aave lending app (to which only institutional players have access), in order to borrow digital Singapore dollars and exchange them for digital Japanese yen. This example proves
that it is possible to carry out transactions involving KYC on a public blockchain (here Polygon). 

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Siemens

[2023] ‍

German transport and telecommunications giant Siemens has issued its first digital bond worth €60 million on the Polygon blockchain. The operation dispensed with the need for international paper certificates and central clearing. The bond could then be sold directly to investors without a bank acting as intermediary. The operation could be completed in just two days, compared with several weeks using the traditional method. 

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Credit Suisse, Pictet and Vontobel

[2022] ‍

Credit Suisse, Pictet and Vontobel carried out a test at the end of 2022 involving the issue of tokenised investment products registered on Ethereum and traded on BX Swiss, a Swiss regulated exchange. The three operations of the test - issuance, trading and settlement - were completed in a matter of hours, whereas they take days in a traditional financial environment. It was the Taurus platform that made the operation possible.