Schemes and Initiatives
 Published Date: 15 December 2022

Ubin+: Advancing Cross-Border Connectivity with Wholesale Digital Currencies

What It Is

Ubin+ Logo

Ubin+ is an expanded collaboration with international partners on cross-border foreign exchange (FX) settlement using wholesale digital currencies.

This initiative aims to strengthen Singapore’s capabilities to use digital currency-based infrastructure for cross-border transactions. Ubin+ builds on the foundation of Project Ubin (2016-2020) together with the learnings from MAS’ participation in Project Dunbar, and the multi-currency corridor network collaboration with Banque de France (BdF).

Ubin+ consists of a series of projects to explore the potential models of digital currency connectivity.

 

Ubin+ Projects

Project Cedar Phase II x Ubin+: Maintaining Connectivity Across Heterogenous Digital Currency Networks

Project Cedar Phase II x Ubin+ is a collaboration between The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s New York Innovation Center (NYIC) and MAS to enhance designs for atomic settlement of cross-border cross-currency transactions, leveraging wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDC) as a settlement asset. The effort entails establishing connectivity across multiple heterogeneous simulated currency ledgers. This aims to significantly reduce settlement risk, a key pain point in cross-border cross-currency transactions.

Project Mariana: Exploring Exchange and Settlement of Wholesale CBDCs with Automated Market Makers
This project is a partnership involving MAS, Banque de France, Swiss National Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub’s (BISIH) Eurosystem, Switzerland and Singapore Centres. It explores the use of Automated Market Maker to automate foreign exchange and settlement of Swissfranc, Euro and Singapore dollar wholesale CBDCs.

The project has three main objectives:

  • Explore the design and application of AMMs for wholesale CBDCs
  • Investigate if a supra-regional network could work as an efficient and trusted hub for cross-border settlement
  • Research wholesale CBDC governance models within that network.

More information can be found in the press releases by MAS and BISIH .
SWIFT CBDC Sandbox: Cross-border Interoperability Across Digital Currencies Based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and Non-DLT Payment Systems
MAS is participating in SWIFT’s CBDC Sandbox, together with more than 18 central banks and global commercial banks, to explore cross-border interoperability across digital currencies based on DLT and non-DLT payment systems.

More information can be found in the press release.

 

Other CBDC Projects

Project Dunbar: Multi-CBDC Platform (2022)
Project Dunbar brings together the Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, Monetary Authority of Singapore, and South African Reserve Bank with the BIS Innovation Hub to test the use of a shared central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) platform for international settlements.
MAS x BdF: Multi-currency Corridor Network (2021)
Banque de France and MAS simulated cross-border and cross-currency transactions for Singapore Dollar (SGD) CBDC and €uro (EUR) CBDC on a common CBDC network. This is the first CBDC experiment that applied automated market making and liquidity management capabilities to reap cross-border payment and settlement efficiencies.