On June 12, Bank of China’s investment bank subsidiary BOCI announced the issuance of 200 million Chinese yuan ($28 million) worth of digital structured notes minted on the Ethereum blockchain. The move makes BOCI the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenized security in Hong Kong. Investment banking company UBS helped originate the product for placement to its client in the Asia-Pacific region. Ying Wang, the deputy CEO of BOCI, commented:
“Working together with UBS, we are driving the simplification of digital asset markets and products, for customers in Asia Pacific through the development of blockchain-based digital structured products, designed specifically for customers in Asia Pacific.”
Simultaneous to the development, UBS has been expanding its tokenization across structured products, fixed income and repo financing. The firm issued a $50 million tokenized fixed-rate note in December 2022 under English and Swiss law, digitized on a permissioned blockchain.
Cointelegraph previously reported that Hong Kong opened crypto exchange access for retail users on June 1. Roughly two weeks later, Joseph Chan Ho-lim, under secretary for financial services and the treasury for the government of Hong Kong, stated that the special administrative region is “actively participating” in the blockchain industry and aims to establish a framework for stablecoin regulation within one year.
On Feb. 16, Hong Kong issued an HK$800 million green bond tokenized on Goldman Sachs’ tokenization protocol GS DAP with an annual yield of 4.05%. In December 2022, Hong Kong introduced two exchange-traded funds for cryptocurrency futures, raising over $70 million before their launch.
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