The National Settlement Depository (NSD) is piloting its new commercial bond trading platform that is built on top of the Hyperledger Fabric. The NSD is the central depository for the biggest securities exchange group in Russia.

According to NSD Executive Board chairperson, Eddie Astanin, their ultimate objective is to establish a Blockchain infrastructure for novel financial products to operate on.

"The ultimate goal [of the] NSD is to build Blockchain infrastructure for any innovative financial product to operate on. Once the infrastructure is created, [the] technology holds potential to deliver a large variety of financial products and services operated by smart contracts.”

California-based software company Altoros has also contributed to the development of the prototype bond trading platform.

Result of the MegaFon bond sale test

As part of the trial run, Raiffeisenbank Russia has utilized the prototype bond trading platform to buy $10 million worth of bonds of Russia’s second-biggest mobile phone network company MegaFon. The bond’s redemption date is December 22.

According to NSD, it has determined that the technology is effective in keeping the trading process pn the platform “simple and transparent” despite the short-lived nature of the pilot test.

NSD’s other Blockchain initiatives

NSD is also advancing other projects based on Blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT). Among them is the creation of a cryptocurrency wallet for banks, pension funds, and retail investors.

Moreover, the NSD has also embraced open-sourcing, with their code publicly viewable on GitHub.

The Hyperledger consortium is led by the Linux Foundation and its main goal is to build Blockchains for business enterprises. The consortium is currently comprised of over 130 members.