The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s New York Innovation Center (NYIC) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced Project Cedar Phase II x Ubin+, a joint experiment to investigate how wholesale central bank digital currencies (wCBDCs) could improve the efficiency of cross-border wholesale payments involving multiple currencies. The Cedar x Ubin+ experiment examined whether distributed ledger technology (DLT) could be used to improve the efficiency of cross-border wholesale payments and settlements involving multiple currencies. 

The technical research experiment built on previous phases of the NYIC’s Project Cedar research and the MAS’ Ubin+ initiative. It examined a cross-border multi-currency use case in which vehicle currencies are used as a bridge to exchange currency pairs that are not widely traded. Specifically, Cedar x Ubin+ explored the ability of DLT to establish connectivity across heterogeneous simulated currency ledgers, reduce settlement risk, and decrease settlement time. The experiment was conducted in a test environment and the hypothetical payments were settled using simulated wholesale central bank digital currencies