As part of the Eurosystem wholesale DLT settlement trials, AXA Investment Managers (AXA IM) executed two transactions using the Banque de France’s ‘exploratory cash tokens’ or wholesale CBDC. The trials completed at the end of November.
We previously reported that the Republic of Slovenia issued a digital sovereign bond using the BNP Paribas Neobonds tokenization platform. AXA IM was one of the investors committing €3 million. Notably, the settlement was T+1.
It’s often assumed that with DLT, settlement is always instant. But it doesn’t have to be. One of the advantages of DLT payments is they can be programmed to take place at very specific times, allowing for cash flow planning by both the sender and recipient. Other solutions have explored combining DLT with netting, but rather than wait for nightly batches, netting can execute several times a day.
While AXA IM was the investor in the first trial, in the second one, Generali invested €1 million in AXA IM’s Courter Terme fund via the IZNES blockchain platform for fund distribution. IZNES took part in previous Banque de France wholesale CBDC trials (several years ago). Hence, it would have been familiar with the central banks’ D3LS DLT platform.
“Combining both assets and cash on chain show the full potential of blockchain technology for financial markets. These efforts are an integral part of our ongoing work on digital assets and tokenization,” said Laurence Arnold, Global Head of Innovation, Client Operations, Performance & Reporting at AXA IM.
Last year AXA IM secured a French license to buy, sell, trade and custody digital assets. A year ago it used SocGen FORGE’s EURCV stablecoin to invest in a SocGen tokenized green bond. It also took part in SocGen FORGE’s hackathon last year.
