UBS Launches Digital Bond That Straddles Blockchain and Traditional Exchanges

UBS AG has launched a 375 million Swiss franc ($370 million) bond that the Swiss bank said in a story in Reuters news was the world's first digital bond to be publicly traded and settled on both blockchain-based and traditional exchanges. The three-year bond with a 2.33% coupon will be issued on the blockchain-based platform of SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) and dual-listed on SDX and the SIX Swiss Exchange. The digital bond settles via the SDX distributed ledger-based central securities depository (CSD) network. Settlement is instant and automatic and does not require a central clearing counterparty, UBS said. Investors can settle and clear the digital bond on either SDX CSD directly or on SIX via an operational link announced last month.