National Bank of Canada (NBC), with the support of J.P. Morgan, issued a $150 million, one-year floating-rate Yankee certificate of deposit using blockchain technology.
NBC and J.P. Morgan mirrored the execution of the actual transaction through a debt issuance application developed by J.P. Morgan that runs on Quorum, an open-sourced variant of the Ethereum blockchain.
The blockchain debt issuance application is designed to incorporate functions across the debt instrument transaction lifecycle, including origination, distribution, execution, settlement, interest rate payments, and maturity repayments.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Pfizer, and Western Asset, a Legg Mason firm, were among the investors in the Yankee certificate of deposit.
David Furlong, senior vice president of artificial intelligence, venture capital and blockchain at NBC, said: “Blockchain-related technologies have the potential to bring about major change in the financial services industry. NBC is proud to join forces with trusted partner J.P. Morgan to test blockchain technology in the context of a Yankee certificate of deposit issuance.”
He added: “This is a unique opportunity for us to expand our knowledge of blockchain. NBC will continue to innovate over the coming years and remain on the lookout for ways we can bring our partners greater value.”
Christine Moy, blockchain programme lead at J.P. Morgan, commented: “We look forward to exploring blockchain-enabled capital markets applications, how these types of transformative opportunities can benefit our clients and counterparts, and how working together on open source technology like Quorum can enable and accelerate this progress.”
.jpg)