The European Central Bank published a Macroprudential Bulletin article assessing whether bond tokenisation using distributed ledger technology improves issuance efficiency and market liquidity. Using issuer-level matching to compare tokenised and conventional bonds, the study finds tokenised bonds are associated with lower borrowing costs at issuance and tighter bid-ask spreads, while operational cost savings are not yet evident. The analysis builds a dataset of 183 tokenised bonds issued between August 2018 and November 2025 and a comparison set of almost 200,000 conventional bonds from September 2013 to October 2025, with issuance concentrated in Europe and particularly Germany. In the matched efficiency sample, tokenised bonds show a 0.14 percentage point lower yield spread at issuance on average, described as a 40% reduction versus similar conventional bonds, while underwriting fees are 0.04 percentage points higher on average with no statistical significance. In the liquidity analysis over 2022-25, tokenised bonds have bid-ask spreads around 0.05 percentage points lower on average, corresponding to a 27% reduction; results for tokenised bonds accessible to retail investors are reversed but driven by a very small number of such bonds with higher average bid-ask spreads. The article links the future impact of tokenisation to infrastructure choices and the ability for markets to scale, referencing Eurosystem work on accepting DLT-based collateral and initiatives to modernise market infrastructures. It also calls for continued monitoring, data collection and experimentation, and notes the ongoing review of the EU DLT Pilot Regime alongside changes introduced in the Market Integration and Supervision package.
European Central Bank 2026-04-13
European Central Bank research finds tokenised bonds have lower yield spreads and narrower bid-ask spreads than comparable conventional bonds
The European Central Bank published research finding that tokenised bonds using distributed ledger technology have lower borrowing costs at issuance and tighter bid-ask spreads than comparable conventional bonds, although operational cost savings are not yet evident. The article links tokenisation’s future impact to infrastructure choices and market scalability, and highlights ongoing Eurosystem work on DLT-based collateral, market infrastructure modernisation, and reviewing the EU DLT Pilot Regime within the Market Integration and Supervision package.