The Bureau of the Treasury, or BTr, on Monday awarded P15 billion in tokenized Treasury bonds to institutional investors, surpassing its minimum plan of P10 billion.

The country's first tokenized or digital bonds attracted overwhelming total bids amounting to P31.426 billion, statement from the BTr showed.

The bonds had a tenor of one year and a gross interest rate of 6.5 percent per annum to be paid semi-annually. The issue and settlement date is set on 22 November.

"This strategic move aims to democratize access to government securities by making them more accessible and affordable for every Filipino investor," Department of Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday said during the BTr's 126th Anniversary.

Tokenized bonds ease transfer of ownership rights to investors at the secondary market and break down the bonds into smaller lot sizes.

Digital financial  transactions boosted

The BTr said transactions for such bonds will be recorded using the Distributed Ledger Technology Registry, which is part of the National Government's Government Securities Digitalization Roadmap.

The government has been promoting digital financial transactions through the use of various digital platforms, such as mobile apps and websites which can be used anytime and anywhere to submit documents and accomplish other transactions.

With these convenient features, the government aims to introduce Filipinos to savings and deposit accounts and investing apart from e-payments.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, or BSP, aims to increase the population of Filipinos with bank accounts to 70 percent this year from 56 percent in 2021.

                                                                                               Progress in financial inclusion

"Progress in financial inclusion has been equally encouraging. I am confident that the Bureau of the Treasury will remain instrumental in helping us achieve our target of banking 70 percent of the adult population," Diokno said.

BSP governor Eli Remolona Jr. said the government will continue to explore financial instruments and ways on making investing easy and affordable also to individual Filipinos.

Expand investment options

"Our goal is to expand investment options so that more Filipinos can grow their money through these fixed-income investments while contributing directly to economic growth," he said.

"Right now, the focus is on institutional investors but hopefully, we can expand this project to retail investors over time," Remolona continued.

Land Bank of the Philippines, or LandBank, and Development Bank of the Philippines serves as the bonds' issue managers.

This year, the government also raised $1.3 billion from its sale of retail dollar bonds to overseas Filipinos and other investors. Bond subscriptions were facilitated through the BTr's website and mobile apps of LandBank and Overseas Filipino Bank.