In a keynote on 9 October 2026, MAS Managing Director Chia Der Jiun said MAS is taking a next step to settle tokenised MAS Bills with Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC, is reviewing aspects of tokenisation that may need further legal clarification, and will help coordinate industry adoption where the case for it is clear. He said MAS is working through BLOOM on settlement in tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins, and that stablecoins may have limits for settling large wholesale transactions.
Why it matters: MAS is putting its own bills and wholesale CBDC at the centre of tokenised settlement in Singapore, and its doubts about stablecoins for large trades limit their wholesale role. R.M.
For Ethereum: MAS's "network of networks" view and the GL1 interoperability toolkits leave room for tokens on public chains such as Ethereum to settle against SGD wholesale CBDC, though no MAS document yet describes the link.
Chia Der Jiun, Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), gave the keynote address at the INSEAD Digital Finance & Agentic AI Summit on 9 October 2026. On tokenisation and digital money he said:
MAS’s Guide on the Tokenisation of Capital Markets Products applies existing securities law to tokenised products, and MAS is “also reviewing other aspects of tokenisation that may require further legal clarification” (para 11).
Where the case for collective adoption of a use case is clear, MAS “will lean in to help orchestrate that move” (para 17).
BLOOM, MAS’s platform for settlement arrangements using digital money, covers tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins, for domestic and cross-border use (para 21).
Stablecoins lack the par exchange into central bank reserves that bank deposits have, and “There may be limits to their suitability for settling large wholesale transactions” (para 22).
MAS made Singapore dollar wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) available on the Singapore dollar Test Network (SGD Testnet) in 2025, first used for overnight interbank loans between DBS, OCBC and UOB (para 23). “We are taking a next step to settle tokenised MAS Bills with SGD wholesale CBDC” (para 24).
MAS has consulted on legislation for single-currency stablecoins, including recognition of foreign stablecoins under comparable regimes (paras 25 to 26).
The future is “a network of networks” rather than a single global ledger (paras 31 to 32). The Global Layer One (GL1) industry platform has published a Market Infrastructure Toolkit and a Programmable Compliance Toolkit, which “a growing number of major distributed ledger networks” are adopting (paras 36 to 37).
Implications
The tokenised MAS Bills are already being issued. MAS’s issuance page describes a trial in 2026, settled in wholesale CBDC on the SGD Testnet and open to institutional investors only. Two issues are listed: S$1 million offered for issue on 23 September 2026 with a 30 September maturity, and S$10 million offered for issue on 9 October 2026 with a 23 October maturity. Primary dealers must bid for at least one fifth of the book-entry issuance amount in each tokenised auction. The page does not give allotted amounts or yields. MAS issues both the bill and the wholesale CBDC it settles in.
For banks choosing a settlement asset for tokenised securities in Singapore, MAS is steering wholesale settlement towards wholesale CBDC and tokenised deposits, with stablecoins at the edges. Stablecoins hold par only through their reserves, and MAS doubts their suitability for large wholesale transactions (para 22). The one concrete step in the speech pairs MAS’s own tokenised bills with wholesale CBDC (para 24). Regulated stablecoins keep a place in BLOOM’s settlement arrangements (para 21).
The legal review in para 11 is open-ended. The speech does not say which aspects of tokenisation MAS is reviewing, when it will report, or which use cases it would coordinate.
For Ethereum
The speech names no chain and does not mention public or permissionless networks. The tokenised MAS Bills settle on the SGD Testnet (MAS), which the issuance page does not describe further.
It still leaves room for tokenised assets on public chains to settle against Singapore’s wholesale CBDC through interoperability. The “network of networks” view assumes connections between ledgers rather than one platform (paras 31 to 32), and the GL1 toolkits are being adopted across distributed ledger networks (para 37). Singapore’s live tokenised products already run on Ethereum, among them UBS Asset Management’s tokenised money market fund and DBS’s tokenised structured notes. No MAS or GL1 document yet describes how a token on another network would settle against SGD wholesale CBDC, so this reading rests on inference.
Elsewhere in Asia
The State of Play on settlement projects compares the three markets. In Hong Kong, HKMA Chief Executive Eddie Yue said on 23 September 2026 that the HKMA will test tokenised Exchange Fund Bills and that CMU OmniClear’s digital asset platform will support settlement against CBDCs and explore tokenised deposits and regulated stablecoins (Regulatory Wire). In India, tokenised corporate bonds under Demat 2.0 settle in the Reserve Bank of India’s wholesale CBDC.
What to watch
Further tokenised MAS Bill issues and any move off the test network, MAS’s response to the stablecoin consultation that closed on 16 October 2026, and any publication from the tokenisation legal review.