DBS has become the first bank to go live on a new digital asset trading platform from Singapore Exchange unit MaxxTrader.
SGX-owned MaxxTrader provides foreign exchange pricing and risk services to over 100 global and regional banks, broker-dealers and hedge funds.
It is now moving into crypto with the MaxxDigital offering, which promises the ability to price, trade and distribute any cash or tradable tokenised digital assets. The platform incorporates OTC and FX execution features for digital asset trading, as well as streaming, Request for Stream and Request for Quote workflows.
Manish Kedia, CEO, MaxxTrader, says: "There is currently a large gap in the digital assets trading market for a robust, functionality-rich trading solution and we believe that MaxxDigital can fill this critical gap."
Jacky Tai, MD, group head, trading and structuring, treasury and markets, DBS, adds: "Partnering with MaxxTrader and leveraging their expertise enhances our digital asset trading offering and trading hours even over weekends without having to commit to additional backend resources."
Separately, DBS has formed a partnership with Open Government Products (OGP) to launch a live pilot where purpose-bound money-based vouchers (PBM vouchers) are issued using tokenised SGD to facilitate “real-world” live transactions with selected merchants.
PBM enables senders to specify conditions, such as validity period and types of shops, when making transfers in digital SGD.
The live pilot will involve up to 1,000 selected consumers and six merchants.
This forms part of Project Orchid, an industry effort led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), to develop the technology infrastructure and technical competencies to enable a programmable digital Singapore dollar (DSGD).
While MAS has assessed that the case for a retail CBDC in Singapore is not compelling for now, it continues to actively explore good use cases for digital currencies. Project Orchid aims to build the technical capabilities and competencies necessary for MAS to issue a retail CBDC, should the need arise.