sukuk

On October 21, the Central Bank of Malaysia officially launched SSDS+, a paperless securities depository system based on distributed ledger technology. Put simply, the authorities have moved the issuance, ownership verification, custody, and settlement of bonds entirely onto the blockchain. It supports not only ordinary tokenized debt securities, but also Islamic bonds (Sukuk), and connects directly to the central bank’s real-time funds clearing system to enable real-time delivery-versus-payment settlement.
Don’t view this through the lens of a small country testing the waters.
Malaysia is a major global hub for Islamic finance, and Sukuk is a trillion-dollar market. Cross-border issuance, multi-tier custody, and inter-institutional clearing all involve extremely high friction costs. At its core, this system rebuilds the foundational registration and settlement infrastructure of the bond market using DLT: ownership can be traced on-chain, delivery and settlement happen simultaneously, and layers of nested custody chains are significantly streamlined.