The Monetary Authority of Singapore ("MAS") has announced 15 finalists for the global Central Bank Digital Currency ("CBDC") competition. The competition sought out financial institutions, FinTechs and technology solution providers to address 12 problem statements relating to CBDC instrument, infrastructure and distribution with a focus on inclusivity, interoperability and programmability.
The 15 finalists will progress to the Acceleration Phase of the CBDC challenge which involves an eight-week program consisting of networking and masterclass sessions with global leaders and industry experts before presenting their final solutions to a panel of judges later this year.
During the Singapore Fintech Festival the finalists will submit their solutions with a chance for the top three to win SGD $50,000 (AUD $49,226).
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Officer of MAS, said:-
The Global CBDC Challenge aims to discover and develop retail CBDC solutions that will benefit the global community.
The challenge comes amid a year focused around progressing CBDC in both domestic and international spaces, with various governments and organisations showing a keen interest in CBDC exploration.
ANZ Australia and Standard Chartered Bank are among two of the finalists who have made submissions. The solution offered by ANZ proposes using digital technologies and CBDC as a use case for being an enabler to the government and citizens digital ecosystem experience. ANZ considers leveraging the investments and solutions already in place - or that are being implemented within the digital ecosystem - for e-governance and smart nation initiatives.
Standard Chartered Bank focuses their solution on addressing the economic interoperability across different digital and non-digital assets, utilising core blockchain technology from shareable assets. The approach aims to implement a shared real-time digital 'chart-of-accounts' to consolidate and position-keep the value of assets across participants, while reducing complexity to positional information by abstracting away higher-level data representations and programmability.
The solutions by the finalists as well as key insights from other submissions will be featured following the Singapore Fintech Festival on November 8 this year.