The Bank of Canada, RBC Capital Markets, RBC Investor Services, TD Bank Group, and Export Development Canada have completed Project Samara, a collaborative experiment to assess the use of distributed ledger technology (DLT) for bond issuance and settlement in real-world conditions.
As part of the project, Export Development Canada issued what is described as Canada’s first tokenized bond using DLT. The payments were settled with wholesale central bank deposits. The bond was sold, traded, and will be managed throughout its life cycle on the Samara Platform.
The platform was developed specifically for this experiment to support all stages of a bond’s life cycle—including cash and bond issuance, bidding, coupon payment, redemption, and secondary trading—on DLT infrastructure. It uses Hyperledger Fabric and integrates separate ledgers for bonds and cash to allow instant settlement and enable secondary market trading directly on-chain.
Project Samara built on previous experimental work from Jasper projects by testing the feasibility of a DLT-based capital markets platform with an actual bond funded and traded using central bank money. The experiment involved issuing a single security: a $100 million Canadian dollar–denominated bond with less than three months’ maturity to a closed investor group.
Findings from the project highlighted both benefits and challenges:
– Operational efficiency improved across participants, with better data integrity and streamlined workflows.
– Some efficiency gains were offset by system complexity, liquidity costs, new governance requirements, and increased needs for coordination and oversight.
– Counterparty and settlement risks were reduced; however, new operational risks related to technology reliability emerged.
– Regulatory gaps became apparent between existing frameworks and DLT principles due to some centralized roles like marketplace operator or custodian.
– Broader adoption may be slow because of integration challenges and reluctance toward changing core infrastructure.
According to Ron Morrow, Executive Director for Payments, Supervision and Oversight at the Bank of Canada: “Project Samara shows how the public sector and industry can work together to harness innovation in the payment ecosystem. The Project allowed us to understand the real-world benefits and challenges of tokenization in capital markets. The Bank welcomes further collaboration in this fast-developing area and will continue to play a role as enabler of innovation in payments that serve Canadians.”
Scott Moore, Executive Vice-President at EDC said: “Issuing Canada’s first tokenized bond is an exciting milestone for EDC and Canada. As Canada’s export credit agency and an institution active in international capital markets, EDC is proud to contribute to this innovation alongside trusted partners. The execution of Project Samara marks an important step in deepening our understanding of tokenization and distributed ledger technology and how it can contribute to the efficiency and security of financial instruments to better serve investors, businesses and the financial community.”
Jim Byrd from RBC Capital Markets stated: “The success of Samara underscores the art of the possible. This group worked together to advance innovation – achieving real-time settlement and reimagining how issuers and investors can interact with fixed-income markets. Beyond the technical achievement, we’ve strengthened our understanding of how distributed ledger technology can be applied across capital markets – from issuance to secondary trading and settlement. We are using these insights to explore how these capabilities can evolve what we offer to our clients.”
Elizabeth St-Onge at TD Securities commented: “TD is proud to serve as Joint Lead Manager on Project Samara and to support the issuance of Canada’s first tokenized bond. Projects like this give us insights that help advance innovation in capital markets and the broader financial system, as well as support market infrastructure that serves issuers and investors.”
The Bank of Canada continues its role within monetary policy oversight while managing currency operations and regulating digital payments. Its efforts include fostering economic growth through financial system management and promoting price stability. Tiff Macklem has served as governor since June 2020 according to official sources.
Comprehensive findings from Project Samara are available in its research paper.
