[LINK] Global financial services blockchain plan

[Stephen Loosley]

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Singapore's central bank debuts global financial services blockchain plan

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has detailed [PDF] its exploration of a multi-purpose shared ledger infrastructure it envisions will be jointly developed by regulated financial institutions, and used to oversee their affairs.

https://www.mas.gov.sg/-/media/mas-media-library/development/fintech/guardian/gl1---whitepaper.pdf


"The legacy infrastructure underpinning global financial markets was developed decades ago, resulting in siloed databases, disparate communication protocols, and significant cost incurred maintaining proprietary systems and bespoke integrations," explained MAS. "While global financial markets have remained robust and resilient, the needs of the industry have grown in sophistication and scale."

Due to this fragmentation, the central bank reckons all would be served best by an entirely new interoperable system, and aims to foster the development of a shared layer infrastructure for hosting tokenized financial assets and applications.

The planned system has the lofty assignment of standardizing the way digital assets, smart contracts, and digital identities are managed, while unlocking funds that are currently stuck in separate systems and also reducing costs. Financial institutions are expected to use this shared platform to issue, trade, settle, and manage digital assets, while also streamlining cross-border transactions.

"By tapping into the capabilities in the broader financial ecosystem, financial institutions can provide a richer and wider suite of services to end users and get to market faster," explained the central bank.

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