Coinfirm, IBM create blockchain reporting for European treasury bonds

By Sunniva Kolostyak

Coinfirm and IBM have joined a partnership of institutions in Poland to launch Europe’s first blockchain-based reporting system for treasury saving bonds transactions.

Working alongside PKO Bank Polski, the National Clearing House and Poland’s Ministry of Finance, the technology partners helped launch the system in December 2020.

The network is built on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology due to its strong decentralisation and scalability and guarantees the immutability of data regarding transactions on treasury savings bonds.

By using blockchain solutions, the treasury bond system will be streamlined for critical ecosystem stakeholders such as issuers, underwriters, registrars and investors – becoming a totally immutable network – minimising redundant validations of bond transactions.

By providing specially-purposed apps, stakeholders will be able to generate reports based on current and past transactions data.

Commenting on the launch, Robert Ciurkot, COO of Coinfirm, said recording the transaction lifecycle in this way will lead to increased understanding and shall continue Coinfirm’s mission of powering the mass adoption of the technology.

“Treasury bonds are the safest financial securities in the world and of critical importance to the infrastructure of traditional markets. We are proud that Poland’s private and public sector is leading the way in the deployment of blockchain to bring data inviolability with this joint-partnership endeavour. Coinfirm and its partners will spur renewed vigour into this safe-haven asset class and demonstrate how this technology can improve the trust, speed and cost of the wider financial securities market,” Ciurkot said.

Moreover, 2020 was a record year for the sale of treasury savings bonds in Poland, amounting to a total of 28.4 billion PLN (~5.6 billion GBP) – an increase of 64.1 per cent from 2019. All retail bonds offered by Poland’s Ministry of Finance are organised by the issuance agent PKO Bank Polski.

Coinfirm has collaborated with PKO Bank Polski in the past on the development and implementation of a ‘Durable Medium’ via Coinfirm’s Trudatum solution which enabled the secure delivery and storage of documents in a completely digital manner. At the time, this initiative made PKO Bank Polski the first bank in Poland to fully implement a blockchain-based solution and was the largest application of blockchain technology in banking in Europe – improving 5 million customers’ user journeys. In October of last year, Trudatum became an officially patented technology.

Coinfirm’s input to the project was based on blockchain competencies gathered from various global institution-linked projects the firm is involved in, enabling the industry-leading RegTech provider to efficiently calibrate smart contracts ready to record the transactions.