According to PANews, Ant Group, closely associated with Alibaba, has announced a significant collaboration with DBS Bank, Singapore's largest bank, to launch a pilot program for 'DBS Treasury Tokens.' This initiative aims to reduce the settlement time for transactions within Ant International from several days to mere seconds, thereby optimizing liquidity and working capital within the group. Ant International also sees potential applications in areas such as instant tax refunds and cross-border payments for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
DBS Bank, officially known as the Development Bank of Singapore, has a notable reputation, with many banks in other countries modeling their names after it. Ant International, which handles a substantial amount of cross-border trade, could leverage this partnership to enable real-time settlement of cross-border trades using tokenization, potentially bypassing the traditional SWIFT system. This project is endorsed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore's Guardian project, which aims to enhance financial market liquidity and efficiency through asset tokenization. The collaboration between Ant and DBS is one of the practical applications of this initiative.
The policy-making group for this project includes several international financial institutions such as the Deutsche Bundesbank, the Financial Conduct Authority (UK), the Financial Services Agency (Japan), the International Monetary Fund, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, and the Banque de France. Notably, no U.S. organizations are part of this policy-making group, suggesting a strategic move to counterbalance U.S. influence. However, some U.S. companies, including JPMorgan Chase, are involved in the enterprise group.
Additionally, Singapore has broader ambitions with its Project Orchid, which explores the issuance of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) known as the 'Digital Singapore Dollar.' Unlike many other countries that print their own currency, the Singapore Dollar is backed by the country's substantial foreign exchange reserves, making it akin to a stablecoin. The central bank would issue the stablecoin, while DBS Bank would act as the exchange platform. Most participants in Project Orchid are local Singaporean institutions, indicating Singapore's clear intent to develop the Singapore Dollar into a crypto-stablecoin for domestic settlements and to unite Eurasian countries in international trade, potentially challenging the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Ant Group, with its extensive cross-border trade operations, is expected to play a crucial role in these application scenarios.
