The Monetary Authority of Singapore has completed a live trial of wholesale central bank digital currency settlement for interbank overnight lending on the Singapore Dollar Test Network, with DBS, OCBC, and UOB as participating banks — marking the first live issuance of Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC with transactions recorded in the banks' official books and regulatory filings.
The SGD Testnet provides three core functions designed to improve settlement efficiency: a common settlement asset for tokenised transactions reducing settlement risk and market fragmentation; programmable payment logic enabling real-time execution of contractual terms; and atomic settlement of both cash and securities components simultaneously, eliminating timing mismatches that create risk.
The completion of a live trial with real transactions in official books is a meaningful step beyond the pilot and sandbox activity that has characterised most wholesale CBDC development globally. MAS Managing Director Chia Der Jiun noted at the Singapore FinTech Festival that tokenisation has matured beyond experimentation and is increasingly deployed in commercial settings — though structural hurdles remain before large-scale adoption.
MAS plans to build on the SGD Testnet pilot with a future trial issuing tokenised MAS Bills to primary dealers, settled using wholesale CBDC. Further details of that next phase will be released in 2026.