The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today announced the 15 finalists for the “Global CBDC Challenge” to compete to develop retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) solutions to improve payment services and to also promote financial inclusion.
The Global CBDC Challenge held by MAS has attracted more than 300 entries from more than 50 countries while having half of its entries from Asia. Finalists, including financial institutions, fintech, and technology solution providers, will now go through the “acceleration phase” to develop their solutions and showcase them at the Singapore Fintech Festival in November.
The shortlisted Fintech companies by MAS are six companies from Singapore ( Citibank N.A., HSBC Bank Limited and HSBC Holdings plc, IDEMIA, IOG Singapore Pte Ltd., Standard Chartered Bank and Xfers Pte. Ltd.), four from the United States ( cLabs, Inc., Consensys, Extolabs LLC and IBM.), Australia, Barbados, Germany, France and Switzerland.
This initiative was launched as a joint partnership with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and many other such world financial organizations and individual businesses.
The sole motive of this initiative was to address 12 issue statements related to CBDC equipment, distribution, and infrastructure.
Among the shortlisted submissions, Ethereum Blockchain Developer ConsenSys and Payment Services Giant Visa, two different industry players, are collaborating to create a Visa retail CBDC payment module supported by ConsenSys’ blockchain infrastructure. Separately, Xfers in Singapore has partnered with SEBA Bank in the Hybrid CBDC for the protection of personal and transactional data, providing the necessary oversight to prevent illegal activity in the public network.
Global CBDC Challenge Finding and developing retail CBDC solutions benefits the global community. We have a strong interest in established financial institutions and emerging fintech, “said Sopnendu Mohanty, MAS Chief Fintech Officer. “The quality of the suggestions from the Global Innovation Community is remarkable.
In addition to global retail CBDC competition, CBDC is a frontier venture with “Project Dunbar” financial institutions in collaboration with the Central Bank of Singapore and the BIS Innovation Hub.
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