Singapore, the hub of digital currency innovations, has moved a step further in the upcoming Global Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) challenge.
The country’s central bank has selected 15 firms, which will be responsible for retailing CBDC. The chosen 15 global CBDC contestants include one company each from Barbados (Bitt), Germany (Giesecke+Devrient advance52 GmbH), Switzerland (Soramitsu), Australia (ANZ Banking Group Limited), and France (Criteo). The rest are four from the United States and six from the hub itself Singapore.
$50,000 Cash Price For the Three Winners
The firms will all participate in the global CBDC challenge and receive a $200,000 grant fund application each.
Three winners to emerge from the challenge will consequently receive an additional $50,000 each and proceed to help build the in-house retail central bank digital currency for Singapore. The three winners will also present the retail CBDC design at the Singapore FinTech Festival that is scheduled to take place on November 8-12.
The global CBDC challenge was birthed on June 28 by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Its goal is to discover and develop retail bank-backed digital currency solutions for the world.
MAS has settled on 15 out of over 300 submissions from 50 countries. Chief FinTech Officer Sopnendu Mohanty described the quality of proposals received from the global innovation community as impressive. The shortlisted solutions that will be showcased at the Singapore FinTech Festival were thus something to look forward to.
A Rigorous Retail CBDC on the Works
The chosen 15 global CBDC contestants are now at the Acceleration phase, which involves weekly masterclasses that will run for 8 weeks. Key topics targeted will cover the development of a rigorous retail CBDC, which the finalists will use to build a lasting solution.
During the 8 weeks, the chosen 15 global CBDC contestants will have access to the API Exchange (APIX)’s digital currency sandbox. The technology will help promote rapid prototyping of digital currency solutions. The Sandbox ecosystem will have over 100 APIs connected to payments and core banking, and MasterCard’s digital funds APIs.
