The City of Lugano Issues Its First Native Digital Bond on SDX With ZKB

The city of Lugano, Switzerland, launched a 6-year CHF senior unsecured bond with a total issue volume of CHF 100 million and a maturity in 2029. By issuing the first native digital bond, the city of Lugano is pioneering this space for all other major hubs in Europe.

The bond was issued on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) and can be held in both Central Securities Depositories of SDX and of SIX (SIX SIS). In addition, as a dual listed bond, this instrument will be listed and tradeable at both SIX Digital Exchange and SIX Swiss Exchange.

The usage of DLT does not introduce materially higher risks compared to a traditional issuance, according to a statement from Moody’s, who rated the bond Aa3. This further shows the strength of the proposition from SIX Digital Exchange as a fully regulated Exchange and CSD building the financial markets infrastructure of tomorrow. SIX Digital Exchange uses R3’s private, permissioned DLT platform Corda.

Michele Foletti, Mayor of Lugano, stated,

“The City of Lugano is a pioneer in the Blockchain space and aims to become an international center of excellence for Blockchain and

Crypto adoption. Issuing our latest bond on SDX has been the natural next step and is the perfect opportunity to reach these goals.”

David Newns, Head of SIX Digital Exchange, adds,

“the City of Lugano’s digital bond issuance on SDX represents the first municipal digital bond ever to be issued on regulated FMI “

Featured image credit: Edited from Unsplash