PANews reported on February 8 that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government announced the successful issuance of digital green bonds worth about HK$6 billion, which is the world's first multi-coin digital bond issuance, including Hong Kong dollars, RMB, US dollars and euros. The bonds have a two-year maturity and are priced at HK$2 billion (3.800%), RMB1.5 billion (2.900%), US$200 million (4.749%) and EUR80 million (3.647%). The offering attracted subscriptions from institutional investors worldwide, including major asset managers, banks, insurance companies and private banks, as well as non-financial institution companies. This is the second issuance of digital bonds, following the first issuance of Token Green Bonds by the Hong Kong SAR Government in February 2023.
The digital green bond offering breaks new ground on several fronts: expanding the scope of investors participating through existing market infrastructure, simplifying the process of issuing bonds in a digitally native format, introducing standardized elements through the adoption of the International Capital Market Association's Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT), and integrating green bond disclosure with digital asset platforms to improve the transparency and accessibility of information. CMU, the clearing and settlement system of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), has partnered with the HSBC Orion digital asset platform to deliver the first multi-coin digital bond offering and Hong Kong's first digital local bond offering.
At the end of last year, it was reported that Hong Kong hired five banks to explore the issuance of digital green bonds on Distributed Ledger technology platforms.