The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has completed Singapore’s first live settlement of interbank overnight lending using wholesale CBDC on the SGD Testnet.

DBS, OCBC and UOB participated in the trial, which included the first live issuance of Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC.

The transactions were recorded in the banks’ official books and regulatory filings.

The SGD Testnet is a shared ledger infrastructure designed to let financial institutions test the settlement of tokenised financial assets using wholesale CBDC.

It supports a common settlement asset through the issuance, transfer and redemption of wholesale CBDC for tokenised transactions, a setup aimed at reducing settlement risk and market fragmentation.

It also allows institutions to develop and deploy conditional payment logic based on predefined terms.

Its multi-asset design enables cash and securities to settle at the same time, removing the settlement risk that arises when they clear through different systems or at different times.

MAS said it will build on the pilot and plans to test the issuance of tokenised MAS Bills to Primary Dealers in a future trial, with settlement carried out using CBDC. Further details will be released in 2026.

The regulator first announced plans on 4 November 2024 to advance asset tokenisation through commercial networks, market infrastructure development, industry frameworks and wider access to common settlement assets.

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