Special Reports
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Markets: SSA, FIG, Covered Bonds, Corporate Bonds, SRI/Green Bonds, Syndicated Loans, LevFin, Emerging Markets, Equity, Asia, Swiss Francs
GC Live Panel Discussions — September 25, 2025
A digital bond market — a landscape of disruption
GlobalCapital gathered together some of the leading players in the international debt capital markets for a private GC Live breakfast briefing dedicated to digitisation on September 25 in London.
The briefing examined the important issue of how new digital technologies, including distributed ledgers, can be introduced into the bond market. By gathering a group of high-level experts from issuers, investors, investment banks, market infrastructure providers and regulators, the event shed light on this crucial — but little understood and at times inaccessible — development of the bond market.
During the opening panel, representatives from investment banks, SSA issuers and digital platforms discussed whether digitisation is bringing genuine reform to the bond markets, the key navigation points on the roadmap for taking digitisation forward and whether the journey is fast enough. They also debated how market participants have responded to the ECB’s July policy statement and, arguably the most important talking point: identifying the next steps to begin to form a genuine networked market infrastructure.
Below are the speakers of the first panel discussion.
Discussion participants
| Tim Armbruster, senior vice president, group treasurer, KfW |
| David Durouchoux, deputy chief executive officer, Societe Generale — Forge |
| Domenico Nardelli, treasurer, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank |
| Timo Reinschmidt, chief commercial officer, Swiat |
| Cyril Rousseau, director general — finance, European Investment Bank |
| Esther Wandel, deputy director general, digital euro, Deutsche Bundesbank |
| Moderator: Toby Fildes, managing director, GlobalCapital |
Solving the technical jigsaw puzzle — big bang or gently does it?
Enthusiasts for distributed ledger technology are convinced it can bring efficiency and cost savings to the bond market. But in this GC Live discussion, experts argued DLT can also respond to new needs, with better services and new financial instruments — for example, to reduce risk.
The Eurosystem’s Trials in 2024 proved financial transactions can be settled on distributed ledgers using central bank money. The eurozone’s monetary authorities are determined to have a central bank digital currency available to use by the end of 2026.
But that is just one part of the infrastructure needed to construct a viable bond market on DLT.
There will be no big bang or ‘ChatGPT moment’, participants said — instead, financial players and regulators need to patiently and persistently work towards a truly interoperable market that begins to save people time instead of consuming it.
And that could mean focusing less on building platforms and more on agreeing standards, which would then be freely available for the market to use to create applications.
Discussion participants
| Adeline Bachellerie, deputy director of innovation and financial market infrastructures, Banque de France |
| Gabriel Callsen, senior director, fintech and digitalisation, International Capital Market Association |
| Peter Kohl-Landgraf, digital transformation manager, capital markets, DZ Bank |
| José Manuel Marqués, director, financial innovation and market infrastructures department, Banco de España |
| Peter Pears, capital markets partner, Mayer Brown |
| Ankur Prakash, head, digital and strategic initiatives, global banking, Standard Chartered |
| Moderator: Jon Hay, corporates, markets and sustainability editor, GlobalCapital |
