China Zheshang Bank Issues Securities Worth $66 Million on Blockchain

Zheshang Bank, one of the largest privately held commercial banks in China, has completed the issuance of $66 million securities to investors by using its proprietary blockchain platform.

Based on public documents, the bank filed its prospectus to the Shanghai Clearing House on Aug. 13 with a plan to issue securities worth 400 million yuan, or $66 million, that are backed by a portfolio of account receivables from various corporations.

According to a report from China Securities Journal on Monday, the bank subsequently completed the issuance on Aug. 17 and became one of the first institutions in the country to have facilitated transactions for securities backed by a group of assets via blockchain.

The platform, called Lianrong, was designed in-house by the bank with the purpose of allowing registered companies to broadcast their account receivable assets to potential investors and to further let them settle transactions of these invoices as a securities in a peer-to-peer fashion.

By purchasing a firm's account receivables, an investor essentially prepays the firm's pending invoice at a discount and expects to collect a full amount at a later stage from the party that is liable for making the original payment.

Founded in 2004, Zheshang Bank is one of the 12 publicly-traded commercial banks in China that have launched various moves into the blockchain industry.

It is not the only financial institution that is turning to blockchain in specifically offering asset-backed securities.

JD Finance, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, also announced a plan in June to partner with another publicly-traded commercial bank to launch a similar product via a distributed network.

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