Mediobanca has digitized its certificate issuance process using the agoraPlatform, a  platform that uses Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to achieve greater operational efficiency.

The project, developed in conjunction with UK-based agora Digital Capital Markets (agora), facilitates growth in investment certificates, a market in which Mediobanca plays with more than 300 issuances per annum.

agoraPlatform is a platform that uses smart contracts and DLT in the issuance and life-cycle management of certificates. The platform significantly reduces the time to produce offering documentation for investment certificates issuance, an activity which normally requires the compilation of large volumes of repetitive information, which makes it liable to operating errors.

Using agoraPlatform, much of this information becomes automatic, meaning that manual input is limited to the initial phase only.

The infrastructure developed by agora facilitates interaction between different units and departments in the capital markets area (sale, structuring, negotiation and documentation) in a digital environment.

This enables all issuance documents, including term sheets, final terms and any other ancillary documents, to be drawn up and finalized automatically. Such innovation is enabled by DLT and smart contracts, which facilitate the real-time synchronization of all players, internal and external, involved in the entire issuance process.

Marco Pozzi, Mediobanca group chief operating officer, said: “Digitalizing issuance workflows is a new achievement for Mediobanca in its technology innovation road map, and makes it one of the first movers in the certificates market. Through this innovative platform, Mediobanca aims to increase the volume of issuances, and so satisfy the growing demand from its distributors. The adoption of DLT technology also lays the foundation for further automation of the life cycle post-trading, both internally and externally, in an ecosystem that in the future may include central securities depositories and issuing partners.”