According to a recent press release, the Bank of Canada along with RBC Capital Markets, TD Bank Group (TD) and Export Development Canada (EDC) have completed the Samara project, a trial of issuing tokenized bonds on a distributed ledger infrastructure.
During the trial, ECD issued $100 million worth of bonds, which were traded and settled on the Samara Platform using central bank currency.
Built on Hyperledger Fabric, Samara’s platform integrates separate ledgers of bonds and cash to support end-to-end transactions, including issuance, tendering, coupon payments, repurchases and secondary trading.
The architecture enables instant settlement and enables secondary trades to be executed directly on-chain, eliminating traditional delays between trade execution and final settlement.
“The Samara project demonstrates how the public sector and industry can work together to harness innovation in the payments ecosystem,” said Ron Morrow, Executive Director of Payments, Control and Supervision, Bank of Canada.
The experiment expanded on previous efforts in the Jasper project series, which explored digital currencies and fintech applications in Canada’s financial infrastructure. Samara’s project used real bonds financed and traded with central bank money, not simulated assets.
The trial demonstrated the benefits of efficiency and risk management. Participants reported efficiency gains across several metrics, including improved operational workflow and better data integrity.
According to the results, the platform reduced counterparty and settlement risk by enabling atomic settlements.
Secondary trading opportunities have shown how tokenized assets can move between parties without the settlement burden that characterizes conventional bond markets.
However, pilot findings suggest that widespread adoption may take time due to operational and regulatory barriers.
As noted, system complexity partially offsets improvements in efficiency, and participants noted increased coordination requirements, new governance structures, and liquidity costs. Technology-related operational risks have evolved around audit and feedback mechanisms, creating vulnerabilities that do not exist in the current market infrastructure.
Regulatory gaps created other problems. Centralized functions such as market operations, storage and reporting of off-platform trades have highlighted the incompatibility between the existing regulatory framework and the decentralized principles underlying distributed ledger technology.
RBC Capital Markets, part of Royal Bank of Canada, highlighted the settlement capabilities demonstrated by the platform. Jim Bird, Global Head of Macro Products at RBC Capital Markets, described the achievement as “reimagining how issuers and investors can interact with fixed income markets”.
Scott Moore, Executive Vice President of Finance and Chief Operating Officer at EDC, described the release as “an important step in deepening our understanding of tokenization.”
