Singapore’s biggest bank DBS rolls out blockchain-powered ‘treasury tokens’ pilot

DBS Bank, Singapore's largest bank by assets, has launched a pilot for “DBS Treasury Tokens” in collaboration with Ant International, a division of Alibaba’s fintech affiliate, Ant Group. This initiative aims to enhance treasury and liquidity management.

According to a statement from DBS shared with The Block, the pilot operates on DBS’s permissioned blockchain, enabling multi-currency treasury and liquidity management for Ant International’s entities across different markets. The project is designed to reduce the settlement time for intra-group transactions from potentially days to mere seconds. This advancement is expected to optimize intra-group liquidity and working capital, offering corporate treasurers improved visibility, predictability, and control over the group's cash position.

Lim Soon Chong, DBS Bank’s Group Head of Global Transaction Services, highlighted that the pilot addresses the evolving treasury needs driven by the rise of e-commerce and on-demand services available 24/7. He noted that DBS’s permissioned blockchain is set to revolutionize traditional banking services with new efficiencies and capabilities, including programmable, fractionalized, and atomic value transfers.

Kelvin Li, Head of Platform Tech at Ant International, mentioned that the partnership has already demonstrated success in areas such as instant tax refunds and cross-border payments for small and midsize enterprises through the Whale platform.

This new project follows DBS Bank’s involvement in Project Orchid and Project Guardian, initiatives led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to explore the benefits of tokenization.

Source: https://www.theblock.co/post/310889/singapores-biggest-bank-dbs-rolls-out-blockchain-powered-treasury-tokens-pilot