Singapore will launch a digital currency for interbank settlements – Kommersant
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced, that from next year it will begin the “live” issuance of digital currency, which will be used for interbank settlements. MAS, which serves as the country’s central bank, stressed that it will develop three types of digital money – central bank digital currency (CBDC), tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. For tests, MAS will involve banks, fintech and Internet companies such as JP Morgan, HSBC, Amazon, Alipay, etc.
MAS head Ravi Menon said that his department began working with the introduction of digital money back in 2016, conducting a number of successful experiments and tests. As a result, MAS decided to issue a digital currency in real time, which banks could use when making payments to each other.
“Since 2016, we have conducted many experiments with other central banks and representatives of the financial industry to explore the use of “wholesale” CBDC (i.e. for interbank settlements.— “Kommersant”) through distributed registries in order to carry out cross-border payments and interstate settlements in real time,” the head of MAS emphasized.
