VIDEO | Today, Monday, the partner was revealed to be Crédit Agricole CIB – read about their new sustainably blockchain-powered bond-issuance platform here. Even so, delegates of PostTrade 360° Stockholm last week were invited for a deep look into the thoughts behind it – and now you, too, can watch this 15-minute session with SEB business developers Johan Hörmark and Sahand Javidi.

After a year’s preparation, the initiative by SEB and Crédit Agricole on digital assets is approaching its first bond issuance this spring, with a not-yet-announced bond issuer. Hear the team representatives describe how the project is being set up, and what considerations have shaped it – including the SEB’s long-term strategy.

“The so|bond platform will enable issuers to raise capital and manage securities through smart contracts, programs that automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of the contract. The platform’s open, transparent and secure model also fosters trust between market participants and allows further innovations such as using a future central bank digital currency,” the banks announce in Monday’s press release.

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S for sustainable, o for open

The platform’s name is “so | bond”, with the first letters standing for sustainable and open. Using a validation protocol called “Proof of Climate awaReness”, it incentivises participants to minimise their environmental footprint (in contrast to for example traditional “proof-of-work” solutions, infamous for their energy thirst). It is also open, compared with many other initiatives.

So we won’t have any more power than anybody else just because we were first. And I think that is very important to make others want to come and build.

“This kind of differs from how others approach this,” Sahand Javidi points out in his on-stage appearance last Wednesday afternoon, and continues:

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“Most other companies when they build something, they don’t go for open-source. They build their own proprietary thing and then they ask other people to join. What we’ve done here is that we made everything open-source. That means that anybody else who wants to join this network, and build something on it, will do so on an equal footing. So we won’t have any more power than anybody else just because we were first. And I think that is very important to make others want to come and build.”

Luxembourg is ahead – legally

After a close look at regulatory frameworks, this first issue will be performed from Luxembourg. With securities DLT raising regulatory questions just as much as technical ones, this session discusses why this is so, where the wind is blowing, and what practicalities Sweden must still get in place to support the vision of a maximum-efficient future infrastructure. 

Speakers:
Johan Hörmark, Investment Banking Business Development, SEB
Sahand Javidi, 
Investor Services Business Development, SEB


• News around PostTrade 360° Stockholm 2023, on 29–30 March, is gathered here.
• The conference info site, with detailed agenda, is here.
• For post-event access to recorded sessions, sign up here (where you can even log in easily by your LinkedIn account).
• By the way … are we connected on LinkedIn already, among the 2,900 post-trade pros who are? Follow us here.