Singapore to trial tokenized bills in 2026

Singapore’s central bank plans to trial tokenized Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) bills next year and introduce laws to regulate stablecoins.

Chia Der Jiun, MAS’s managing director, announced the move at the Singapore FinTech Festival.

MAS is also developing a regulatory framework for stablecoins, focusing on reserve backing and redemption reliability.

The bank is also supporting trials under the Bloom initiative, which tests tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins for settlements.

DBS, OCBC, and UOB have completed overnight interbank lending using a live trial of Singapore dollar wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC).

MAS will expand these trials to include tokenized MAS bills settled with CBDC.

A regulatory guide on tokenzsed capital market products will be released this week.

MAS has agreed to work with the Bank of England and Bank of Thailand on experiments for real-time, cross-border foreign exchange transactions.

It also signed an agreement with Deutsche Bundesbank to explore cross-border digital asset settlement.

🔗 Source: Reuters

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

MAS finalized its stablecoin framework in 2023. Issuers must meet value stability, reserve backing, and reliable redemption to use the “MAS-regulated stablecoins” label 1. The rules cover single-currency tokens pegged to the Singapore Dollar or any Group of Ten (G10) currency that are issued in Singapore 1.
The media release left out the split of reserves and exact redemption timelines 1. MAS posted more guidance on its website and is drafting legislation 1 2.
The start date remains unknown 2. MAS said it is “preparing legislation” with no effective date, which keeps issuers and platforms from locking plans.

BLOOM is an MAS pilot for tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins in multi-currency settlement 3. It spans G10 and Asian currencies, and early members include Circle and DBS 3. OCBC, UOB, and Partior joined 3. Stripe and Coinbase joined as well 3. The work covers distribution and clearing 3. It also adds programmable compliance controls (automated rule checks embedded in transactions) and agentic payments (software-agent-initiated transactions) 3.
Firms that build payment plumbing, treasury vendors, and Application Programming Interface (API) fintechs outside the pilot can study the standards. Focus on blockchain protocols, API specs, and settlement finality.
MAS invited more banks, financial institutions, and clearing operators to run trials 3. That opens room for third parties with compliance automation middleware, cross-network connections, or agentic payment orchestration if they sync product timelines to pilot phases.