PANews reported on November 4 that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today announced a series of plans to promote the commercialization of tokenized financial services assets, covering aspects such as market liquidity, infrastructure, industry framework and settlement convenience.
1. Deepening the liquidity of tokenized assets: Through Project Guardian, MAS has convened more than 40 financial institutions to conduct market trials of tokenized assets, covering six currencies and a variety of financial products. The Guardian Wholesale Network, composed of Citibank, HSBC, Schroders, Standard Chartered Bank and United Overseas Bank, will promote the commercialization of tokenized assets.
2. Market infrastructure ecosystem: MAS launched the Global Layer One (GL1) project in 2023 to support seamless cross-border transactions. Banks such as BNY, Citibank, and JPMorgan Chase are leading the development of infrastructure standards to ensure compliance and interoperability of cross-border circulation of tokenized assets. New members such as Euroclear and HSBC have joined, and a working group has been established to focus on digital asset compliance.
3. Industry Implementation Frameworks: Two industry frameworks were released, including the Guardian Fixed Income Framework (GFIF) and the Guardian Fund Framework (GFF), providing standardized implementation guidelines for debt capital markets and tokenized funds.
4. Common Settlement Facility: MAS has launched a wholesale CBDC test network (SGD Testnet) denominated in Singapore dollars (S$), supporting financial institutions of Project Guardian and Orchid to use S$ CBDC for payment and securities settlement. The first batch of participating institutions include DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered and UOB.
MAS Vice President Liang Xingqiang said that MAS encourages financial institutions and policymakers to jointly develop industry standards to promote the commercialization and industry-wide promotion of tokenized capital market products.
