3/11  BIS - Central bankers' speeches  It eliminates settlement risk, duplicative reconciliation, and the need for large prefunding accounts. It has benefits not only for retail payments but also cross-currency and securities transactions. One of the most promising ways to achieve atomic settlement is through tokenised assets which can be exchanged simultaneously on a distributed ledger. This is what MAS has been experimenting with since 2016 through Project Ubin. Project Ubin demonstrated three things: banks paying one another without going through MAS; decentralised netting of payments while preserving transactional privacy; and final settlement and delivery-vs-payment by tokenising digital currencies and securities assets so that they could be simultaneously exchanged. The success of Project Ubin paved the way for further collaborations and progress. Partior – a joint venture among DBS Bank, JP Morgan, and Temasek – has used a blockchain based multi-currency clearing and settlement platform to reduce the settlement time for Singapore dollar and US dollar transactions from days to minutes. Project Dunbar – a partnership among the BIS Innovation Hub, Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank Negara Malaysia, South Africa Reserve Bank, and MAS – has built open-source distributed ledger platforms for international settlements using wholesale central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs. MAS will be launching Project Ubin+, a global initiative on the cross-border exchange and settlement of foreign currency transactions using wholesale CBDCs. It will focus on three areas: One, study business models and governance structures where settlement can be performed atomically, to improve efficiencies and reduce risks.
Senders will have upfront certainty of fees due and an immediate update on transaction status. High security. The central platform leverages on the strong security and risk mitigation protocols built into national faster payment systems. The ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, have a shared vision of a multilateral network of payment linkages across ASEAN by 2025. MAS believes that Project Nexus can be a key enabler towards realising this vision. ASEAN is well placed to be a first-mover on this multilateral solution. In fact, as this network expands, we hope to see more countries coming onboard as we build connectivity from ASEAN to the rest of the world. STRONG LIKE METAL - ATOMIC SETTLEMENT (PROJECT UBIN PLUS) The second desired outcome is atomic settlement. Real-time cross-border payments does not mean real-time settlement. Let me explain. Project Nexus solves the clearing problem. The sender's bank account is debited and the recipient's bank account is credited instantaneously, based on the payment instruction sent through the network; and the recipient can spend the money. But it does not solve the settlement problem. The actual movement of funds between the banks is not instantaneous. It involves many intermediaries, goes through different ledgers, and takes two to three days to complete. This potentially creates multiple points of failure and higher costs. We want a real-time settlement system that is strong and secure like Metal. We want atomic settlement. Atomic settlement is the simultaneous exchange of two linked assets in real-time.