Digital Digest: The Latest Tech News – UBS, SBI Digital Asset Holdings, DBS

Editorial Staff

11 January 2024

UBS, SBI, DBS
, SBI Digital Asset Holdings and DBS have launched a live repurchase transaction – aka “repo" – which uses a Singapore-issued digital bond on a public blockchain. This is a global first, the organisations said in a statement yesterday.

The transaction automatically and instantly settled a repo, digital bond purchase and redemption using regulated digital payment tokens, across regulated entities located in three different jurisdictions (Japan, Singapore, Switzerland). A repo was used to borrow tokenized Japanese yen against a yen-denominated natively-issued digital bond, with the borrowed tokenized yen used to finance the purchase of the same bond. The subsequent digital bond redemption and payment of principal and interest at maturity was also executed on blockchain.

The development is an example of how blockchain, also known as distributed ledger technology, is being deployed to drive efficiencies in the “plumbing” of the world’s financial system.

The exercise was carried out as part of the Project Guardian programme run by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.