MAS Unveils New Initiatives Including Live Wholesale CBDC Trials In Singapore

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) unveils initiatives to cover the safety and innovation of Digital Money along with Wholesale CBDC and Singapore dollar infrastructure development.

MAS revealed the update on Thursday, November 16,  revealing that it is promoting three major initiatives, which include wholesale CBDCs, tokenized bank liabilities, and regulated stablecoins.

MAS To Enable Live Wholesale CBDC Trials

For the settlement, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has introduced three key initiatives to promote the safe and innovative use of digital money in Singapore. 

These include a blueprint for a digital Singapore dollar infrastructure for rooting. Along with that, expansion of digital money trials, and plans to issue a “live” central bank digital currency (CBDC) for wholesale settlement.

Inspired by Project Orchid, which integrated the multi-phase exploratory project examining the relevance to the digital Singapore dollar, the trials will be executed on the same blueprint structure.

The trials will involve tokenized bank liabilities, wallet interoperability, supplier financing, and institutional payment controls. These factors are essential to test the applicability of Purpose Bound Money (PBM) and digital money.

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CBDC For Wholesale Bank Settlements and Issuance

In addition to retail and corporate trials, MAS will begin developing a CBDC for wholesale interbank settlement in the next year. 

The “live” issuance of wholesale CBDCs will be a pilot for retail payments between commercial banks. This is to ensure the future potential application in cross-border securities trade settlement.

Adding to the undergoing development, Ravi Menon, Managing Director of MAS, highlights the issuance of wholesale CBDC as a significant milestone, reinforcing the role of central bank money in facilitating safe and efficient payments.

Among other nations where CBDC is still in its infancy, Singapore, France, and Switzerland have already successfully tested cross-border wholesale digital currency. The National Bank of Kazakhstan also joins the party as it has already started its pilot CBDC program.

Most of the projects mimicked interactions between financial institutions using fictitious currencies and employed decentralized finance (DeFi) technology on a public blockchain.

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