Singapore and Canadian Central Banks Partner on Blockchain Cross-Border Payments

Singapore’s central bank has announced  amongst several initiatives during the FinTech Festival,  a significant partnership with the Bank of Canada on cross-border payments using blockchain.

Today, during the Fintech Festival, Mr. Ravi Menon, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s central bank and financial regulator, extensively spoke about Project Ubin, which is the central bank’s attempt to place a tokenized Singaporean dollar (SGD) on a blockchain.

Menon emphasized  the need to establish a “more efficient and secure” way to conduct cross-border interbank payments, which is currently reliant on intermediaries and may take days to settle.

Singapore’s central bank is currently expanding its Project Ubin, which enables central banks to make direct payments without intermediaries with high speed and minimal risks, beyond Singapore  by establishing  a partnership with its counterpart in Canada.

Menon stated: “We are pleased to announce a collaboration on cross-border payments with the Bank of Canada using blockchain technology.”

The Bank of Canada published, earlier this year, the results of its own blockchain experiment, trialing the CAD-Coin, a digital currency developed in collaboration with New York-based industry startup R3.