The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has unveiled a series of significant advancements within Project Guardian, an innovative initiative spearheaded by Singapore’s central bank aimed at pioneering the utilization of decentralized finance (DeFi) principles in the financial industry.
Five new industry pilots have been introduced to Project Guardian to explore various aspects of asset tokenization, each with a unique focus and purpose.
Project Guardian aims to establish the groundwork for the expansion of tokenized markets by developing foundational capabilities. MAS envisions these developments as a means to facilitate the institutional adoption of digital assets.
This, in turn, is anticipated to enhance liquidity, unlock fresh investment opportunities, and enhance the overall efficiency of financial markets.
Among the 17 financial institutions participating in Project Guardian, notable players like Citi, T. Rowe Price, and Fidelity International are engaged in testing bilateral digital asset trade mechanisms.
They are also exploring real-time post-trade reporting and analytics for digital asset transactions.
Ant Group, another member, is assessing the capabilities of a treasury management solution to optimize liquidity management on a global scale.
BNY Mellon and OCBC have taken on the challenge of evaluating a cross-border foreign exchange payment solution capable of facilitating transactions across diverse networks.
Franklin Templeton is actively testing the issuance of a tokenized money market fund within a variable capital company (VCC) structure.
Simultaneously, JPMorgan and Apollo have teamed up to streamline labor-intensive manual processes in asset servicing using digital assets.
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In addition to these five pilots, MAS has launched Global Layer One, a groundbreaking venture aimed at designing an open digital infrastructure that will host tokenized financial assets and associated applications.
The central bank has also fostered collaboration with the financial industry to create an Interlinked Network Model.
This model serves as a common framework for the seamless exchange of digital assets across independent networks among different financial institutions.
An exciting addition to Project Guardian is the inclusion of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as one of its key policymakers.
This collaboration underlines the global significance of MAS’s efforts in advancing the adoption of DeFi principles and digital assets within the financial ecosystem.
In summary, the expansion of Project Guardian, with its new industry pilots and collaborative endeavors, signals a bold step forward in the realm of DeFi-driven financial infrastructure development, ultimately reshaping the future landscape of financial markets in Singapore and beyond.
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