Singapore Trialling a CBDC, Plans Laws on Stablecoins, MAS Says

Singapore’s central bank is looking toward the future. It has begun trialling a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and wants to trial tokenised MAS bills.

It also plans to bring in laws to regulate stablecoins.

MAS is the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s central bank, which is pressing forward with plans to build a scalable and secure tokenised financial ecosystem, the bank’s top official said on Thursday.

ALSO SEE: Bridge Collapse in Southern China Linked to Dam in Seismic Zone

“Tokenisation has lifted off the ground. But have asset-backed tokens achieved escape velocity? Not yet,” said Chia Der Jiun, managing director of the MAS, in a keynote address at the Singapore FinTech Festival.

He said the MAS has been working on the details of its stablecoin regulatory regime and will prepare draft legislation, with the emphasis on “sound reserve backing and redemption reliability.”

MAS is also supporting trials under the BLOOM initiative, which explores the use of tokenised bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins for settlement, he added.

“In the CBDC space, I am pleased to announce that the three Singapore banks – DBS, OCBC, and UOB – have successfully conducted interbank overnight lending transactions using the first live trial issuance of Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC,” he said.

A CBDC, or central bank digital currency, is a digital form of central bank money.

MAS will expand trials to include tokenised MAS bills settled with CBDC, he added.

Chia said a regulatory guide on tokenised capital markets products will be published this week, and MAS is working with international counterparts to align standards and support adoption.