ICMA welcomes the HKSAR Government's third issuance of a digital green bond aligned with Version 2.0 of ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy
29 September 2026 The International Capital Market Association (ICMA) today welcomes the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)’s announcement of a successful offering of digital green bonds implementing ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT).
The digital green bonds issued by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (the HKSAR Government) on 29 September 2026 are the third issuance to adopt ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT).
As stated in the HKMA press release, this issuance has once again set a new record for the largest digital bond issuance in the world, pricing around HK$20 billion worth of digital green bonds.
The issuance aligns with Version 2.0 of the Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT), the latest major release of the standard. Version 2.0 represents the most significant expansion of the BDT to date, with enhanced coverage for more complex issuance structures, greater flexibility in data fields to accommodate a wider range of transaction types, and broader applicability across the bond lifecycle. The release also includes additional fields to support DLT-based transactions and comes at a time of increasing market adoption across the global fixed income ecosystem, spanning both DLT-based and traditional workflows.
The Bond Data Taxonomy (BDT) is a standardised, machine-readable language for key bond terms developed by and for market practitioners. It aims to enhance market efficiency, improve interoperability and reduce fragmentation across the fixed income ecosystem.
The announcement by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority can be found here.
Further information on ICMA’s Bond Data Taxonomy, which is publicly available, can be found here.
