The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city-state’s central bank, launched Project Ubin+ on Thursday, a collaborative initiative with international partners to explore cross-border foreign exchange (FX) settlements using wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
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Fast facts
- Project Ubin+ will study whether digital currency-based atomic settlements can reduce risks in cross-border FX settlements.
- The MAS just launched Project Mariana on Wednesday to study the integration of decentralized finance (DeFi) and CBDCs to FX and liquidity management with the Bank of International Settlements and the central banks of France and Switzerland.
- Project Ubin+ will also test the interoperability of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and non-DLT-based payments by taking part in SWIFT’s CBDC sandbox of 17 central and commercial banks.
- The central bank’s initiative also includes the study of smart contracts for counterparty risk reduction and whether it can improve cross-border transactions settlements.
- The initiative builds on the central bank’s Project Ubin, an initiative that explored the efficiency of blockchain technology in clearing and settlements that concluded in 2020, and Project Dunbar, a multi-CBDC platform for international settlements.
- MAS said it will bring forth policy guidelines for the connectivity of digital currency infrastructure across borders, to address compliance issues and governance for such linkages.
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