Poland records Treasury Bonds on a blockchain


A joint partnership of institutions has launched a blockchain-based reporting system for Poland’s treasury saving bonds transactions in a European first.

Coinfirm and IBM are the innovative technological partners of the initiative alongside financial heavyweights PKO Bank Polski and the National Clearing House that launched the system in December 2020 – with the participation of Poland’s Ministry of Finance.

The network, built on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology due to its strong decentralization and scalability, guarantees the immutability of data regarding transactions on treasury savings bonds. Specially-purposed apps will enable stakeholders to generate reports based on current and past transactions data.

“Treasury bonds are the safest financial securities in the world and of critical importance to the infrastructure of traditional markets. We are proud that Poland’s private and public sector is leading the way in the deployment of blockchain to bring data inviolability with this joint-partnership endeavor. Coinfirm and its partners will spur renewed vigour into this safe-haven asset class and demonstrate how this technology can improve the trust, speed and cost of the wider financial securities market.” – Robert Ciurkot, COO of Coinfirm

Blockchain solutions streamline the system of treasury bonds for critical ecosystem stakeholders such as issuers, underwriters, registrars and investors – becoming a totally immutable network – minimizing redundant validations of bond transactions. The transaction life cycle recorded in this way will lead to increased understanding and shall continue Coinfirm’s mission of powering the mass adoption of the technology.

2020 was a record year for the sale of treasury savings bonds in Poland, amounting to a total of 28.4 billion PLN (~5.6 billion GBP) – an increase of 64.1% from 2019. All retail bonds offered by Poland’s Ministry of Finance are organized by the issuance agent PKO Bank Polski.

Coinfirm has collaborated with PKO Bank Polski in the past on the development and implementation of a ‘Durable Medium’ via Coinfirm’s Trudatum solution which enabled the secure delivery and storage of documents in a completely digital manner. At the time, this initiative made PKO Bank Polski the first bank in Poland to fully implement a blockchain-based solution and was the largest application of blockchain technology in banking in Europe – improving 5 million customers’ user journeys. In October of last year, Trudatum became an officially patented technology.

Coinfirm’s input to the project was based on blockchain competencies gathered from various global institution-linked projects the firm is involved in, enabling the industry-leading RegTech provider to efficiently calibrate smart contracts ready to record the transactions.