Sberbank, NSD And MTS Complete Full-Cycle Bond

[PRIBO247]

Russia’s leading banking institution, Sberbank, and
MTS, a major mobile operator, completed successfully a
full-cycle security deal using smart contracts – from
bond issue to full execution of the issuer’s obligations
to the investor, East-West Digital News (EWDN) reports .
The MTS commercial bonds were organized and
purchased by Sberbank’s corporate and investment
banking business. Their nominal cost – 750mn rubles,
or nearly €10mn – was redeemed.

The transaction was carried out using the blockchain
platform of Russia’s central securities depository
(National Settlement Depository, or NSD). This platform
is based on the Hyperledger Fabric 1.1, one of the
latest blockchain implementation frameworks.
As reported by Sberbank, “the use of the blockchain
allowed securities and money to be transferred
simultaneously.” While the issuer, the NSD and the
investor had access to the decentralised platform to
carry out the deal, “the list of participants could be
changed dynamically,” making the transactions
accessible “to a wide range of investors.”

“Changing the world” with blockchain
“Blockchain can change the world just as much as the
Internet. This technology is very important to the
banking sector as it allows expenses to be reduced,
significantly increases the speed and security of
transactions and provides an unprecedented level of
trust and transparency for all transactions,” commented
Andrey Shemetov, Sberbank’s Vice President and Head
of the Global Markets Department.

“I’m sure that our joint blockchain project with the NSD
and MTS is just the beginning, and products and
services using blockchain, including smart contracts,
will become commonplace in the future,” he added.
One year ago MegaFon, another major Russian mobile
operator, completed a bond issue of 500mn ruble
(around $8.6mn at that time) with blockchain
settlement . The entire issue was purchased by
Raiffeisenbank. The NSD was also involved in the
operation.

A few weeks after this experiment, Sberbank completed
“the first-ever pilot blockchain payment transaction in
the Russian banking industry.” The transaction used the
IBM Blockchain Platform on the basis of HyperLedger
Fabric. Sberbank’s partners and participants in the pilot
were mobile operator MegaFon and its R&D unit
MegaLabs, Alfa-Bank, and IBM.

Source : http://www.intellinews.com