Societe Generale, the financial conglomerate, issued the first structured product in the form of security tokens on the Tezos public blockchain. The securities were fully underwritten by the group’s insurance arm.
According to the press release, the deal marks a new milestone in the Forge subsidiary’s development, which aims by 2022 to offer professional clients of Societe Generale services for structuring, issuing, exchanging and safekeeping crypto-assets.
The product is based on medium-term notes (EMTN) for €5 million.
“This experiment, conducted in accordance with leading market practice, demonstrates the legal, regulatory and operational feasibility of issuing more complex financial instruments (structured products) on a public blockchain,” the statement said.
Societe Generale notes that the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) provides:
- increased efficiency and smoother settlement of financial transactions;
- an unprecedented ability to structure products;
- shorter time to market;
- automated corporate actions;
- increased transparency and speed of transactions and settlements;
- fewer intermediaries and, as a result, lower costs.
Forge is taking part in experiments with the national digital currency (CBDC) across several blockchains.
One of the technology division’s CBDC-testing partners was ConsenSys, the Ethereum studio.