Last Monday, February 12, Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Financial Officer of Singapore , mocked at excessive speculative activity "» He nonetheless confirmed his dedication to the Blockchain project of the Singapore Central Bank – "Ubin." According to Mohanty, it's in two years that we will see the real impact of the project .. .What is precisely the "Ubin Project", a Blockchain initiative by Singapore CB?

What is the Ubin Project

As of November 16, 2016, MAS announced that it would be partnering with R3, a Blockchain technology company, and a consortium of financial institutions on a proof-of-concept project to make interbank payments using Blockchain technology.

Instantly, it was evidence that the Central Bank of Singapore and Blockchain authorities and cryptocurrencies, rather than run away and flee. In its initial announcement, MAS said: "The project will develop a pilot system in which the Blockchain infrastructure is used to issue and transfer funds between participants."

They identified that Blockchain has the power to "make financial transactions and" What was also emphasized in this preliminary announcement is that this experience could lead to banking alternatives: "It will also help MAS and Industry to develop simpler alternatives to use and more efficient to current systems. "

Implementation Phases

The Ubin project rollout has been ongoing since the end of the year. 2016 and is still in its opening phases. It's a long-standing project that includes an impressive list of advisors and partners. Participating financial institutions include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, DBS Bank Ltd, HSBC Limited, JP Morgan, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, OCBC Bank, Singapore Exchange, Standard Chartered Bank and United Overseas Bank.

Accenture was appointed to manage and develop the prototypes. R3, IBM and ConsenSys have been hired to provide support on the respective DLT platforms of Corda, Hyperledger Fabric and Quorum. Microsoft has been hired to support the deployment of prototypes on Azure Blockchain.

Phase 1 was announced with Deloitte's order to produce a report covering all aspects of Ledger Distributed's settlement technology. prototype design. This report was considered the basis of the MAS Blockchain protocol

On October 5, 2017, the project moved to Phase 2, which involved the aforementioned consortium of financial institutions, which had "successfully developed software prototypes "

In the future, the idea is to take advantage of two derivative projects that will bring important lessons on the prototypes developed. "The first Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) project aims to make the fixed-income trading and settlement cycle more efficient through DLT. The second project focuses on new methods for making cross-border payments using the central bank's digital currency. "

How Does It Affect Regulation?"

Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief of Fintech at MAS, in an interview with CNBC at the end of Phase Two, had a tone of Learning and understanding, indicating that this MAS experience is for the greater good of the ecosystem: "It is far from bringing the wider ecosystem together, we all learn together."

Essentially, the goal that MAS is trying to achieve globally is that regulators should not be afraid of experimenting with Blockchain and that they need to understand the possibilities before doing a Indeed, Mohanty told CNBC that this experience would not necessarily become a commercial project or even a regulation:

"Do not be afraid to experiment and do not fall into traps of policy change. Some regulators are afraid of doing experiments because of this huge external pressure on them. We try to drive this culture globally. "

Not the Only Example

Ubin Project is a Blockchain project that lays out a lot of interest and intrigue from a central bank. One is a project that is taken seriously and is well planned and calculated, drawing on a number of resources already invested in the financial space

However, this is not the only example where positive nations have taken a step towards understanding Blockchain technology in order to better use it.

In South Africa, there was an announcement last year that the reserve bank would allow a Blockchain Solutions company to operate in a sandbox settlement in order to monitor the potential, as well as the difficulties, of Blockchain technology.

This scenario Sandbox is much more regulation oriented than the Bank is trying to test the regulations t the controls in this sandbox and BankyMoo n in order to find a balance. At the announcement of this partnership, last July, Lorien Gamaroff, CEO of Bankymoon, admitted that: "All we do at this point is to see where this relationship will take place in this sandbox. "

This may not be the same as the MAS creating its own cryptocurrency lawsuit. However, it is telling that regulators and governments are now taking enough account of Blockchain and cryptocurrencies that they feel the need not only to regulate, but also to support

Learning from the Sandbox

show that the African nation wants crypto-currencies not only to comply with legislation and regulations, but that they prosper and are not stifled.

Gamaroff has spoken to Cointelegraph since that first meeting with the Reserve Bank. the interest of regulators for Blockchain and the related aspects of the ecosystem: "Things have started to become much more formal, and the Reserve Bank regulators are studying more closely other companies that deal with different things, like tokens and currencies associated with Blockchain. He also added:

"They make an assessment with all these comps and hope to develop guidelines that companies can follow to incorporate cryptocurrencies or anything of that sort. But they are very suggestive, open and welcoming, there is no negative feeling about this space and regulation. They love pushing the limits and exploring all that Blockchain can do to help people. "

This approach to South Africa is different from that of Singapore, but there is clearly a correlation between the two companies." Mohanty, and now Gamaroff confirmed that regulators are open and positive towards Blockchain technology, they just want to make sure that they do it well for everyone. "In addition, all of Africa will look to South Africa for see how it comes out and, as things go, it could be a positive thing for the whole continent, "concluded Gamaroff

Love

The approach of Singapore and South Africa in the examples above indicates that there are dreaded regulators who are willing to learn and compromise. in regulation will be the only way to widely accept Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies.

L Blockchain technology has been praised almost everywhere, but it is the sphere of cryptocurrency that has its problems. However, a little understanding on the part of those making the calls could lead to rules that allow Blockchain to flourish, protect cryptocurrency users and maintain order in the financial sector.