Singapore has been making sure to embrace cryptocurrencies while progressing towards central bank digital currencies [CBDC]. The country’s latest move is proof enough for the same.
CBDCs have garnered immense attention. Intending to advance towards digitalization, countries across the globe have started to develop their native CBDC or a digital version of the existing fiat. China’s plunge towards the development of CBDC is no secret. While certain regions have just started probing the benefits of a CBDC, China has already sent its digital yuan out for testing.
Sprucing up the development of its very own CBDC, a prominent financial regulator of Singapore revealed that the country was taking suggestions and solutions from the public surrounding the CBDC.
Singapore elevates its CBDC game
In a recent blog post, the Monetary Authority of Singapore [MAS] noted that it was ready to hear ideas pertaining to CBDCs from the public, particularly fintech companies. Accordingly, fintech firms and institutions across the world will be allowed to apply for MAS’s CBDC challenge until 23 July 2021.
The Singapore regulator hopes to bag feasible CBDC solutions by offering prize money of 50,000 Singapore dollars to the first three winners. This initiative was further backed by prominent agencies like International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Capital Development Fund, and the United Nations Development Programme, among several others.
Participants were urged to keep certain things in mind before presenting the solutions. This list included cost-effectiveness and accessibility, all this while upholding the “resilience and intergrity” of the existing financial system.
Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief FinTech Officer of MAS addressed the competition and stated,
“Through the Global CBDC Challenge, MAS hopes to encourage innovator communities worldwide to develop and showcase solutions that can maximize the potential of CBDC to deliver efficiencies to payment services, improve financial inclusion, consistent with central banks’ core mandate of monetary stability.”
Additionally, the Global CBDC challenge was endorsed by Amazon Web Services, Mastercard, Partior, R3, and open-source software foundations, Hyperledger and the Mojaloop Foundation and managed by the API Exchange (APIX) and Tribe Accelerator.