On 27 June 2024, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the expansion of two initiatives to scale asset tokenisation for financial services.
Project Guardian
One of these initiatives – Project Guardian – involves partnering with global industry associations and financial institutions to drive common asset tokenisation standards in fixed income, foreign exchange, and asset and wealth management. MAS has worked with 24 financial institutions on this project over the past two years, and it is now welcoming the Global Financial Markets Association, International Capital Market Association and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association as the first global industry associations to join the project’s industry group. These industry associations will be involved with the project’s three new workstreams (fixed income, foreign exchange, and asset and wealth management).
Global Layer One
MAS has also been working with international financial institutions on the first phase of the Global Layer One (GL1) initiative, which has been successfully completed. The GL1 initiative explores the development of a multi-purpose, shared ledger infrastructure based on Distributed Ledger Technology which is intended to be developed by regulated financial institutions for the financial industry.
A whitepaper has been published detailing the design principles, objectives, considerations and potential uses of GL1.
GL1 plans to expand the initiative by collaborating with more policymakers, central banks, regulators, international standard setting bodies and financial institutions. The next phase will explore establishing a non-profit organisation to develop standards, market practices and governing principles of foundational digital infrastructure for tokenised assets.