Singapore’s MAS says no urgent case for retail CBDC, but launches 4 fast trials of it

cointelegraph.com:

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has wrapped up the first stage of its Project Orchid examination of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). According to the white paper released on Oct. 31, there is no “urgent case” for a retail CBDC in Singapore, but the study envisioned the infrastructure required in case a need arose. It also conceptualized a new model for digital currency — purpose-bound money — and pulled large Singaporean banks and government agencies into the research with a series of trials.

Singaporean consumers do not need a retail digital dollar at present because of the high quality of services already available, the authors wrote. They indicated, however, that the most foreseeable use case may be for the benefit of the MAS rather than users:

The MAS uses the concepts of programmable payment (“the automatic execution of payments once a pre-defined set of conditions are met”) and programmable money (“embedding rules within the medium of exchange itself that defines or constraints its usage”) to devise its purpose-bound money (PBM), which “specifies the conditions upon which an underlying digital currency can be used.”

This highly constrained, nonintermediated form of CBDC would serve well for vouchers, the authors of the white paper said. Four trials will be conducted at the Singapore FinTech Festival from Nov. 2 to 4.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (@MAS_sg) has marked the successful completion of Phase 1 of Project Orchid w/ a report detailing potential uses of a purpose-bound digital Singapore dollar and the supporting infrastructure required #CBDC #digitalmoney https://t.co/3QwH5cPFoz

DBS Bank said it would issue digital Singapore dollars with smart contract capabilities enabled by the