Grab, StraitsX to test ‘purpose-bound money’ at SG fintech festival

Payments infrastructure platform StraitsX and super app Grab are testing the issuance of “purpose-bound money” in the form of commercial digital vouchers.

StraitsX stablecoins / Photo credit: StraitsX

Purpose-bound money, or purpose-bound digital Singapore dollars (SGD), enables senders to dictate conditions for the use of their digital SGD. Apart from commercial vouchers, the government has also trialed other forms of the concept, including government vouchers, government payouts, and managing learning accounts.

StraitsX and Grab will test the digital vouchers, which are sponsored by Temasek, during the Singapore Fintech Festival 2022. The pilot will involve 5,000 trial participants that will use the vouchers through their preferred blockchain e-wallet app. Voucher holders can make purchases at selected F&B outlets and Grab’s merchant partners.

GrabPay, the super app’s payment service, is also working with StraitsX and crypto payment gateway TripleA to accept StraitsX’s Singapore dollar stablecoin, XSGD, on the Polygon chain and reflect it as SGD in participating merchants’ GrabPay accounts.

Building on this initiative, the issuance of purpose-bound money “further demonstrates how blockchain technology and stablecoins can be applied in real-world scenarios,” said Liu Tianwei, the deputy CEO of StraitsX parent firm Fazz.

Meanwhile, financial services group DBS has partnered with Singapore’s Open Government Products to launch government vouchers, with a live pilot involving up to 1,000 selected consumers and six merchants.

The company estimated that the vouchers issued – using tokenized SGD – could benefit 28,000 coffee shops, hawker centers, and restaurants in Singapore. According to the firm, enabling the use of these vouchers could help establishments instantly settle payments and reduce the resources needed for administrative tasks, among other benefits.

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