# Introduction With the Obligate platform, companies can issue on-chain bonds and commercial paper to obtain funding from a diverse range of investors. This comes at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional offerings but with the same regulatory certainty, as the instruments are globally enforceable, regulated debt securities. At the same time, investors get access to a wide range of regulated digital debt assets which can be secured with on-chain collateral. Utilizing smart contracts and tokenization in place of intermediaries such as paying and issuer agents, Obligate is able to reduce the costs associated with a bond issuance by 80% and reduce the time needed for an issuance from weeks to hours. Return to [obligate.com](https://obligate.com) --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.obligate.com/obligate/introduction.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.