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ANZ, the Australian bank, has joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian: a collaborative initiative to explore the potential of tokenised real-world assets in financial markets.
Launched in 2022, Project Guardian fosters cooperation between policymakers and financial industry players to enhance market liquidity and efficiency through asset tokenisation.
The move sees ANZ partnering with blockchain technology provider Chainlink Labs and investment platform ADDX to investigate interoperability between private blockchains for the exchange of tokenised assets such as commercial paper.
Nigel Dobson, ANZ Banking Services Lead, pointed out the current challenges in the tokenised asset landscape. “Tokenised asset markets are highly fragmented, with tokenised assets and related services developed across different blockchains that are not natively interoperable. This can limit the adoption of tokenised assets, while making the integration process for financial institutions complex.”
ANZ’s involvement in Project Guardian is expected to contribute to addressing these interoperability issues, potentially paving the way for broader adoption of tokenised assets in financial markets.
ANZ will join 24 members of the industry group, which consists of various financial institutions. Project Guardian brings these parties together with seven policymakers and three associations: the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA), the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA).
In 2022, ANZ became the first Australian bank to mint its own stablecoin—the Australian dollar stablecoin, or A$DC. The bank’s demonstrable interest in tokenised assets in part motivated its joining the MAS.
“We look forward to demonstrating how our emerging Digital Assets capabilities, such as A$DC, can be used to support our customers to move goods and capital across the region,” Mr Dobson said.
The bank’s participation also underscores Singapore’s growing importance as a hub for financial innovation. Mark Evans, ANZ Singapore Country Head, said, “ANZ has been in Singapore for 50 years and over that time, our customers have benefited from the bank having access to a regulatory environment that truly fosters innovation.”
