The Monetary Authority of Singapore will pilot the issuance of tokenised government bills settled through a Singapore dollar wholesale CBDC in 2026, partnering with DBS, OCBC, and UOB in what represents one of the most advanced real-world tests of blockchain-based sovereign debt infrastructure.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has announced the launch of a 2026 pilot programme that will see tokenised government bills issued to primary dealers and settled using a Singapore dollar-denominated wholesale central bank digital currency. The initiative, which builds on a successful 2025 trial involving DBS Bank, JPMorgan, and Standard Chartered, represents one of the most advanced efforts by any central bank to bring sovereign debt issuance onto blockchain infrastructure with central bank money as the settlement asset.
The pilot will combine tokenised MAS bills with tokenised bank liabilities to create a fully digital financial market chain — from initial issuance through to final settlement. DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, and United Overseas Bank have been confirmed as banking partners for the programme. The MAS said the pilot is designed to test whether tokenisation can deliver meaningful improvements in settlement speed, collateral efficiency, and operational resilience compared with existing bond market infrastructure.
Architecture of the Pilot
The tokenised government bills will be digital representations of existing MAS bills — short-term sovereign debt instruments that the central bank uses for monetary policy operations and liquidity management. Primary dealers will be able to purchase, hold, and trade these tokenised instruments on a blockchain platform, with settlement occurring in wholesale CBDC rather than through the conventional real-time gross settlement system.
The wholesale CBDC component is critical to the pilot's significance. Unlike retail CBDCs, which are designed for use by the general public, wholesale CBDCs are restricted to financial institutions and serve as a digital equivalent of central bank reserves. By using wholesale CBDC as the settlement asset, the MAS ensures that tokenised government bills carry the same settlement finality and credit risk profile as their conventional counterparts — they are settled in central bank money, not in commercial bank deposits or stablecoins.
This design choice addresses one of the primary objections that central bankers and regulators have raised about tokenised securities: that settlement in private tokens or stablecoins introduces credit and liquidity risk that does not exist in traditional central bank money settlement. The MAS pilot explicitly eliminates this concern by keeping the settlement layer within the central bank's own infrastructure.
Building on Project Guardian and BLOOM
The tokenised bills pilot is the latest initiative under Singapore's broader push to develop regulated digital asset infrastructure. The MAS has been among the most active central banks in exploring tokenisation through its Project Guardian programme, which has conducted over a dozen industry pilots covering tokenised bonds, foreign exchange, and asset management products since its launch in 2022.
In parallel, the MAS has launched the BLOOM initiative — the Broadened Liquidity for On-chain Optimised Markets programme — which supports trials involving tokenised bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. BLOOM is designed to create a sandbox environment where financial institutions can experiment with different forms of on-chain settlement, from wholesale CBDC to tokenised commercial bank deposits to MAS-licensed stablecoins.
Ravi Menon, the former MAS managing director who oversaw the early stages of these programmes before stepping down in 2024, described Singapore's approach as 'pragmatic experimentation' — testing tokenisation under real market conditions while maintaining the regulatory safeguards that institutional participants require. His successor, Chia Der Jiun, has continued the approach, with the tokenised bills pilot representing its most ambitious expression to date.
Global Context and Competitive Dynamics
Singapore's pilot positions it at the forefront of a global race among central banks to develop tokenised sovereign debt infrastructure. The European Central Bank has advanced its own wholesale CBDC programme under the Pontes project, which is scheduled to go live in the second half of 2026 and will allow commercial banks to settle tokenised assets in central bank money. The Bank of England has conducted exploratory work on wholesale CBDC settlement, though it has not announced a comparable pilot programme.
In the United States, the Federal Reserve has taken a more cautious approach, with officials emphasising the need for further research before committing to CBDC-based settlement infrastructure. This divergence has created an opportunity for financial centres like Singapore to establish early-mover advantages in tokenised capital markets infrastructure — potentially attracting institutional participants seeking to develop capabilities in jurisdictions where the regulatory framework is more advanced.
Citi Research, in an April 2026 report, projected that the total addressable market for tokenised real-world assets could reach $4 trillion by 2030 in a bull case scenario, with sovereign debt representing one of the largest potential categories. The report cited settlement efficiency, reduced counterparty risk, and improved collateral mobility as the primary drivers of institutional demand for tokenised government bonds.
Stablecoin Regulation Tightens Alongside
The tokenised bills announcement coincides with the MAS's ongoing development of stablecoin-specific legislation. Singapore introduced a regulatory framework for single-currency stablecoins in 2023 and has been working to extend these rules to cover multi-currency and algorithmic stablecoins. The MAS has signalled that its stablecoin regulations will be designed to complement, rather than compete with, the wholesale CBDC infrastructure being developed through the tokenised bills pilot.
This dual-track approach — developing wholesale CBDC for institutional settlement while regulating private stablecoins for commercial use — reflects a pragmatic recognition that different forms of digital money will serve different functions in the financial system. The MAS has been explicit that it views wholesale CBDC and regulated stablecoins as complementary rather than substitutive, with each serving distinct segments of the payment and settlement ecosystem.
What to Watch Next
The pilot is expected to run through the second half of 2026, with the MAS indicating that it will publish detailed findings on settlement times, operational performance, and participant feedback. If successful, the programme could pave the way for a permanent transition of some portion of Singapore's government debt issuance onto blockchain infrastructure — a development that would mark a milestone in the adoption of distributed ledger technology by sovereign issuers.
For the broader digital asset industry, the MAS pilot offers a concrete demonstration of how traditional financial infrastructure and blockchain technology can converge under central bank oversight. Unlike the decentralised finance protocols that have dominated blockchain innovation in recent years, Singapore's approach places the central bank firmly at the centre of the settlement process — a model that is likely to appeal to the institutional participants whose adoption remains essential for tokenised assets to achieve mainstream scale.
