Schemes and Initiatives
Project Ubin
Project Ubin is a collaborative project between MAS and industry partners that explores the use of Distributed Ledger Technology, and whether it can potentially benefit the industry.
What It Is
Project Ubin is a collaborative project with industry partners to explore the use of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for the clearance and settlement of payments and securities.
The project aims to help MAS and the industry, through practical experimentation, get a better understanding of DLT, which has the potential to make financial transactions and processes more transparent, resilient and at lower cost.
The eventual goal is to help develop simpler and more efficient alternatives to today's systems based on digital central bank issued tokens.
Project Phases
Phase 1: November 2016 to March 2017
Domestic Inter-Bank Payments Using a Central Bank issued SGD Equivalent
MAS announced on 16 November 2016 that it will be partnering R3, a DLT company, and a consortium of financial institutions on a proof-of-concept project to conduct inter-bank payments using Blockchain technology. The consortium includes the following financial institutions:
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Credit Suisse
- DBS Bank
- HSBC Limited
- JP Morgan
- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
- OCBC Bank
- R3
- Singapore Exchange
- United Overseas Bank
The consortium also included BCS Information Systems, which acts as the technology provider.
Settlement systems report
With the conclusion of Phase 1 on 9 March 2017, the report Project Ubin: SGD on Distributed Ledger (2.55 MB) was released, covering the aspects of DLT that are most suited to settlement systems, and details the design principles used for the prototype.
The report serves as an introduction to DLT, and provides an understanding of the prototype developed.
Phase 2: October 2017 to November 2017
MAS and The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) announced on 5 October 2017 that the consortium they are leading has successfully developed three different software prototype models for decentralised inter-bank payments and settlements with liquidity savings mechanisms.
The report (3.57 MB)was published and the source-codes and technical documentations are open for public access under Apache License, Version 2.0. Central banks, financial institutions, as well as academic and research institutions are encouraged to tap on the open source-codes to facilitate experiments, research and innovation.
Financial Institutions
The consortium includes the following financial institutions:
- Bank of America Merrill Lynch
- Citi
- Credit Suisse
- DBS Bank
- HSBC Limited
- JP Morgan
- Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
- OCBC Bank
- Singapore Exchange
- Standard Chartered Bank
- United Overseas Bank
Technology Partners
The consortium also includes the following five technology partners, and their scope of appointment.
| Technology partners | Scope of appointment |
|---|---|
| Accenture | Manage and develop prototypes |
| R3 |
Support on the Corda DLT platform |
| IBM | Support on the Hyperledger Fabric DLT platform |
| ConsenSys | Support on the Quorum DLT platform |
| Microsoft | Deployment of prototypes on Azure Blockchain |
Spin-off Projects
Delivery versus Payment (DvP)
MAS and Singapore Exchange (SGX) announced on 24 August 2018 that it is collaborating to develop Delivery versus Payment (DvP) capabilities for settlement of tokenised assets across different blockchain platforms. This will allow financial institutions and corporate investors to carry out simultaneous exchange and final settlement of tokenised digital currencies and securities assets, improving operational efficiency and reducing settlement risks. Three companies, Anquan, Deloitte and Nasdaq were appointed as technology partners for this project. They will leverage on the open-source software developed and made publicly available in Project Ubin Phase 2.
The successful conclusion of the DvP project was announced on 11 November 2018. The project demonstrated that DvP settlement finality, interledger interoperability and investor protection can be achieved through specific solutions designed and built on blockchain technology.
Following its conclusion, MAS and SGX have jointly published an industry report (5.85 MB), which provides a comprehensive view of automating DvP settlement processes with Smart Contracts . The report also identified key technology and operational considerations to ensure resilient operations, and defined a market framework that governs post-trade settlement processes such as arbitration.
Cross-border Payment versus Payment (PvP)
The Bank of Canada (BoC), Bank of England (BoE) and the MAS jointly published a report on 15 November 2018 which assesses alternative models that could enhance cross-border payments and settlements. The report examines existing challenges and considers alternative models that could in time result in improvements in speed, cost and transparency for users.
The report, “Cross-border interbank payments and settlements: Emerging opportunities for digital transformation” (4.4 MB), provides an initial framework for the global financial community to assess cross-border payments and settlements in greater depth. Specifically, it discusses how a variety of payment models could be implemented, from both a technical and non-technical perspective.
The MAS and BoC are now collaborating to develop possible technical solutions to the proposed payment models. This Jasper-Ubin project looks at linking up Project Ubin by MAS and Project Jasper by BoC for cross-border payments.
Future Phases
The next phases of Project Ubin focus on new methods to conduct cross border payments using central bank digital currency.