Brazilian National Social Development Bank to issue Ethereum-based stablecoin ‘BNDES’

The Brazilian National Social Development Bank is going to issue a stablecoin, called “BNDES” token, pegged 1:1 to the national currency, real, CoinDesk reported.

After trialing the Ethereum-based stablecoin throughout this year, the bank is going to launch a pilot in January 2019. It plans to use the BNDES token for tax-deductible contributions to cultural institutions.

The pilot will be launched in collaboration with Ethereum design studio ConsenSys, which will provide consulting services. It will involve issuing BNDES tokens to the National Film Agency, a film distribution company, to support the creation and promotion of scripts and movie productions in the country.

Vanessa Almeida, a BNDES systems development manager, told CoinDesk that the pilot could use smart contracts to enforce rules, ensuring that “the company that receives the money can only spend it with companies that are working within the [film] sector.”

The project will allow filmmakers associated with the National Film Agency to “collect and share their financial records in real-time.” BNDES recipients will be able to redeem the tokens for fiat only through the bank.

With bank’s history of corruption scandals including misallocation of funds and alleged bribes, the pilot team hopes that public BNDES blockchain data will help boost trust in state-owned banks.

Gladstone Moises Arantes, Jr., technical lead of the BNDES blockchain initiative, said that depending on the results of the pilot, the bank will consider expanding it to other organizations that receive public funding.

“The concept we have could be used for other institutions in Brazil or the government as a whole,” he said.