On June 12, Bank of China’s investment bank subsidiary BOCI announced the issuance of 200 million Chinese yuan ($28 million) worth of digital structured notes minted on the Ethereum blockchain. The move makes BOCI the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenized security in Hong Kong. Investment banking company UBS helped originate the product for placement to its client in the Asia-Pacific region. Ying Wang, the deputy CEO of BOCI, commented:
Simultaneous to the development, UBS has been expanding its tokenization across structured products, fixed income and repo financing. The firm issued a $50 million tokenized fixed-rate note in December 2022 under English and Swiss law, digitized on a permissioned blockchain.