Singapore Launches Blockchain Payment System
After three years in development, the Singapore blockchain payment project UBIN comes to fruition. Project Ubin, a blockchain-based payment system developed by the Singaporean Government is now finished and available for commercial use.
Ubin began as a project to help Singapore explore using blockchain and distributed ledger technology, with a particular focus on improving financial clearing, settling payments, and security issues.
According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS): “The project aims to help MAS and the industry better understand the technology and the potential benefits it may bring through practical experimentation. This is with the eventual goal of developing simpler to use and more efficient alternatives to today’s systems based on central bank-issued digital tokens.”
Ubin is a multi-year multi-phase project, with 14 different financial institutions across the globe. The system was developed with IBM Hyperledger using Microsoft Azure Blockchain as a testing platform. Other tech companies working on the project include Accenture, R3, and ConsenSys.
Ubin is currently in its fifth, and last, experimental stage, with the MAS planning to bring it into operation soon. It is now capable of not only clearing and settling payments but also working in other fields — such as capital markets, insurance, and supply chain finance.
Ayooluwa Joshua