Bank of Canada, Major Banks Complete First Tokenized Bond Trial Under Project Samara

Project Samara was jointly conducted by the Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada (EDC), RBC Capital Markets, RBC Investor Services and TD Bank Group. Building on Project Jasper's research into distributed ledgers, the initiative sought to determine whether tokenization could shorten bond settlement times, reduce settlement risk and improve data consistency.

The Bank of Canada announced the trial's completion on March 5, 2026. EDC issued Canada's first tokenized bond, a C$100 million offering with a maturity of less than three months, to a closed group of investors. The Hyperledger Fabric platform integrated bond and cash ledgers, enabling real-time settlement using central bank wholesale deposits and supporting auctions, secondary-market trading, interest payments and redemption.