Having participated in the Point Zero Forum over the last 3 years, I’ve come to realize how it has become fertile grounds for truly impactful conversations that lead to tangible collaborations between regulators, industry players, policy makers and fintechs to solve real problems for the #customer. In fact, the inaugural forum in 2022 was the starting point for our partnerships with the Bank for International Settlements – BIS Innovation Hub to experiment on retail CBDCs under Project Rosalind, and led to interest and partnership with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Grab, and StraitsX under the ambit of Project Orchid, where we tested the viability of an escrow-based smart contract payment for online commerce. As a merchant, these pilots allowed us to bring the customer perspective to the table as regulators and payment service providers sought to build new archetypes to explore how payments can be made more efficient. Both Projects Orchid and Rosalind have been able to demonstrate the material benefits from using digital currency. In particular: the cost of facilitating and settling payments has generally been much lower than conventional payment methods, cost reductions have been identified for merchants, network providers and the end users; achieving instant finality avoids counterparty settlement risk and compliance and regulatory benefits can be achieved through easier audit and demonstrating compliance with conditions (i.e., Know Your Customer layer). As we move to the next phase of Purpose Bound Money, we are happy to share that we will be working with HSBC and StraitsX to explore a tokenized payables system to address the gaps in SME financing, which today prevents many SMEs from reaching their full potential. Our aim is to demonstrate how digital money can provide an efficient mechanism to lower the risks and costs of SME financing, an issue close to Amazon’s and many organizations’ hearts. We’ve distilled these insights and more at https://lnkd.in/gwrwVVqC Special thanks to collaborators from StraitsX Grab Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) for their inputs and insights, and Elevandi for helping us launch it at the Point Zero Forum recently. Amira Karim | Karen Pepper | Sujit Misra | Avishek Chandra | Rajeev Tummala | Samson Leo | Matthew Higginson |
Karen Pepper
1mo
You were awesome Kennie!!
Content at Elevandi by MAS
1moPleasure hosting you Kennie Ong, Amira Karim and team!