Al Hilal Bank which has its headquarter at Abu Dhabi has carried out a transaction which is blockchain based for an Islamic bond which is worth $500 million.
On Monday, the bank made an announcement that a settlement has been made for the Islamic, shariah bond which is also known as the sukuk.
The sukuk is worth $500 million and the bond has been settled in the secondary market with the use of blockchain technology.
The maturing date of the bond is September 2023. The bank was assisted by a UAE based fintech startup, Jibrel Network which guided the bank with all the necessary tools and infrastructure for blockchain in order to facilitate the transaction.
The bank is also the investment arm of the government of Abu Dhabi.
The bank further stated that its aim is that by using the blockchain and therefore integrating the technology into the infrastructure in order to issue smart sukuks or the digitalized version of sukuks in order to transform the market of sukuk they are aiming for the transformation of the market of sukuk.
The CEO of the Al Hilal Bank, Alex Coelho, stated that they are proud to be the first in launching a “Smart Blockchain Islamic Sukuk”.
The CEO further stated that the advantages of using a range of smart contracts are from safer transactions to the new opportunities, where the smart transactions come with compliance of robust Shariah whereas the new opportunities is all about unlocking them.
The bank also said the sukuks of Islam is that class of asset that grows the fastest. The worth of bonds being issued in the year 2017 is that of $97.9 billion which marks a 50 percent increase when compared with the year 2016.
Source: CoinDesk, Investing