DBS expands the offering on its digital exchange with its first-ever bond issuance via security token offering.
DBS has issued a S$15 million ($11.35 million) bond through a security token offering (STO) on its digital exchange, according to a statement.
The bond has a six-month tenor with a coupon rate of 0.60 percent per annum.
The issuance was executed via private placement and DBS was the sole bookrunner for the transaction.
According to the bank, asset tokenization enabled the digital bond can be traded at a significantly smaller minimum of S$10,000 per board lot, further driving liquidity and lowering barriers for investor access.
While most bond tokenization exercises announced in Asia to date tend to be repackaged forms of a conventional bond issue, the current transaction directly combines existing legal and tax infrastructure requirements with a direct issuance on the digital exchange in smaller lot sizes, said DBS’ global head of fixed income Clifford Lee.
This bond token structure was only made possible because of the progressive development of Singapore’s legal and tax infrastructure, which can facilitate more STO issuances to broaden and deepen our capital markets.
According to DBS’ group head of capital markets Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, the bank expects more issuers to leverage asset tokenization for fundraising.
Our maiden STO listing on the DBS Digital Exchange is a significant milestone, as it highlights the strength of our digital asset ecosystem in facilitating new ways of unlocking value for issuers and investors, he said.
We expect asset tokenization to increasingly become more mainstream as more of our clients start to embrace security token issuance as part of their capital fundraising exercise which we believe will boost Singapore’s ambitions to be a digital asset hub in Asia.
DBS’ digital exchange – DDEx – launched in December 2020 with an initial offering that covered cryptocurrency trading.
Daily trading volumes have increased 10-fold compared to the initial week of the launch, the bank said, with over 120 participants on the exchange and S$80 million of digital assets in custody.
Earlier this month, the bank launched a crypto trust offering that combined wealth planning services with emerging digital currencies.