In a press release published this week, a major U.S. cross-border payments and money transfer company announced a new service in its existing mobile application, allowing customers to trade and hold three major cryptocurrencies: bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), and litecoin (LTC). The press release noted that the service was made possible through a partnership with a U.S. cryptocurrency exchange.
In another recent press release, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced "that the first industry pilot under MAS' Project Guardian that explores potential decentralised finance (DeFi) applications in wholesale funding markets has completed its first live trades." According to the press release, the DeFi pilot involved several major global banks that "conducted foreign exchange and government bond transactions against liquidity pools comprising of tokenised Singapore Government Securities Bonds, Japanese Government Bonds, Japanese Yen (JPY) and Singapore Dollar (SGD)" and included the successful completion of a "live cross-currency transaction involving tokenised JPY and SGD deposits."
Several other notable developments were announced in Singapore this week during the Singapore Fintech Festival. In separate press releases, U.S. stablecoin issuers Paxos and Circle Internet Financial both announced that they had received approval from the MAS to offer digital payment token products and services in Singapore. In another press release, a major multinational bank announced its investment in Partior, a blockchain-based payment and settlement platform. According to the press release, the bank will "serve as the first Euro settlement bank for the Partior platform" and the investment will accelerate the bank's "deployment of blockchain technology across its global wholesale payments and settlements network, scaling the utility of Partior's technology in global capital markets."
For more information, please refer to the following links:
- Standard Chartered makes strategic investment in Partior, accelerating transformation of the global financial network
- MoneyGram Introduces New Crypto Service Enabling Customers to Buy, Sell and Hold Cryptocurrency via the MoneyGram App
- MAS: First Industry Pilot for Digital Asset and Decentralised Finance Goes Live
- Circle Earns In-Principle Regulatory Approval in Singapore
- Paxos Secures Major Payments Institution License from Monetary Authority of Singapore
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