Clifford Chance

The past few years have seen key milestones in the development of digital capital markets as individual jurisdictions adapt their legal frameworks, sandboxes are set up for experimentation and innovative DLT-based issuances attract attention.

As part of our recent International Festival of Fintech Martijn Siebrand (ABN AMRO) and Laurence Van Der Loo (ASIFMA) joined us to discuss how digital bonds are offering investors opportunities for diversification and issuers a new source of liquidity, as well as what's coming next for the market across Europe, in APAC and beyond.

Topics the panel discussed include:

• Groundbreaking global issuances, including Vesteda's inaugural digital green bond and European Investment Bank (EIB) issuances
• The differences between digital and conventional bonds, including the legal and commercial advantages, timing and documentation considerations.
• Legal and regulatory challenges for issuances and how these are being overcome, including the impact of new sandboxes like the EU DLT Pilot Regime and the UK Digital Securities Sandbox.
• The state of readiness of market infrastructure, and jurisdictional considerations including regulator support and investor demand
• What's next for the digital bond market, including the Global Financial Markets Association's (GFMA) five key calls to action for industry participants and regulators.
• ESG considerations for digital bond issuances.

Speakers:

• Martijn Siebrand, Digital Assets at Strategy & Innovation, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
• Laurence Van Der Loo, Managing Director, Technology and Operations, Asia Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA)
• Mark Chan, Partner, Clifford Chance
• Dewi Walian, Counsel, Clifford Chance