ANZ announced it will join the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) Project Guardian to explore broader access to tokenized real-world assets in financial markets. In partnership with Chainlink Labs and ADDX, ANZ will explore interoperability between private blockchains to exchange tokenized real-world assets, such as commercial paper.
ANZ Singapore Country head, Mark Evans, said in a statement: “MAS is a global leader in its unwavering commitment to digitise the financial system through industry collaboration. 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.
The Australian bank will play a role in fast-tracking the development of a stable, secure digital asset ecosystem which will be essential to meeting the future needs of our customers across the region, he added.
Since 2022, Project Guardian has supported collaboration between policy makers and the financial industry to enhance liquidity and efficiency of financial markets through asset tokenisation.
ANZ Banking Services lead, Nigel Dobson, said in a statement: “Tokenized asset markets are highly fragmented, with tokenized assets and related services developed across different blockchains that are not natively interoperable. This can limit the adoption of tokenized assets, while making the integration process for financial institutions complex.” He added that the bank’s emerging digital assets capabilities, such as A$DC, can be used to support customers to move goods and capital across the region.
Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov said in an emailed statement: “Interoperability is critical for financial institutions to transact with tokenized assets at scale, making Chainlink CCIP a key enabler for accelerating the growth of the tokenized economy.”