Bank of Montreal Trials Blockchain for Fixed-Income Issuance

Canada’s Bank of Montreal and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan have recently completed a transaction using blockchain technology to evaluate its effectiveness in the securities market.

In this trial, the Bank of Montreal issued a C$250 million (approximately $190 million) one-year floating-rate deposit note to the pension fund based in Ontario. The bank employed blockchain to replicate the transaction, which was also processed as a traditional issuance through the Canadian Depository for Securities. The Bank of Montreal’s BMO Capital Markets division has pioneered this initiative to explore the potential applications of blockchain in fixed-income issuance.