Yesterday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) unveiled the Ubin+ Project, a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that will follow three tracks to explore the use of wholesale CBDC for cross-border payments.

The Mariana Project, which was presented earlier this week by the BIS Innovation Hub, is one of the Ubin+ tracks. The BIS, together with the central banks of Singapore, France and Switzerland, will explore how to use Automated Market Makers (AMM), a DeFi tool, for foreign exchange in cross-border payments.

A second project involves interoperability between DLT and non-DLT payment systems. To further this research, MAS participates in the SWIFT CBDC Sandbox, which involves 17 central banks and commercial banks.

Third, CBDCs are likely to co-exist with other wholesale digital currency networks. He didn’t mention names, but examples include Partior and Fnality. MAS wants to explore the connectivity between CBDCs and these digital currency networks, as well as the role of smart contracts in addressing counterparty risks for international payments.

“Interoperable wholesale digital currencies offer efficiency gains across an ever-increasing range of cross-border use cases,” said Sopnendu Mohanty, director of financial technology at MAS. “We will evaluate these new use cases simultaneously to keep pace with technological advances, focusing on use cases that create good value for the widest range of stakeholders.”

MAS has already contributed extensively to CBDC research in its five-phase Ubin Project. Most recently, he participated in multi-CBDC experiments for cross-border payments with the Dunbar Project, including the central banks of Malaysia, Australia, and South Africa, led by the BIS Innovation Hub.

The central bank sees a greater need for wholesale than retail CBDC at present, but is nonetheless conducting retail CBDC trials under the Orchid Project. The most recent initiative is for programmable money, or what it calls money with a purpose.