The Austrian government has enlisted Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB) to notarize the auction of a EUR1.15 billion government bond using the ethereum blockchain.
Local bank OeKB will deploy the notarization service to authenticate transaction data and then store it on the blockchain.
Blockchain-based data notarization involves using an encryption method for documents to derive a unique electronic fingerprint, known as the hash. This hash is unambiguously assignable to the original document, but conversely does not allow conclusions to specific data content.
This means the original document can be stored securely in OeKB’s computing centres, and the authenticity of the document can be guaranteed.
"We regard the innovative form of blockchain-based data notarization as a logical technological advance in times of digitalization," says Angelika Sommer-Hemetsberger, OeKB board member responsible for IT and capital markets service.
In August, the World Bank mandated the Commonwealth Bank of Australia to launch the world’s first bond to be created, allocated, transferred and managed through its life cycle using distributed ledger technology.