MAS Tests Wholesale CBDC Settlement as Project Agorá Advances Central Bank Alternative to Stablecoins
Oct. 25, 2026 • Deep Dive • Digital Assets
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has issued tokenised MAS Bills in live trials on its Singapore Dollar Test Network, settling them with wholesale central bank digital currency. An initial S$1 million one-week tranche was followed by a S$10 million tranche scheduled to mature on October 23, 2026. MAS says placing tokenised securities and central bank money on common infrastructure supports monetary stability and settlement finality.
Separately, the Bank for International Settlements and the Institute of International Finance completed real-value testing for Project Agorá. Twenty-eight financial institutions and five central banks executed 30 transactions worth CHF 800,000 across six currencies, averaging 80 seconds per settlement. The initiatives illustrate why central banks favour wholesale CBDCs and tokenised bank deposits for institutional transactions: they aim to preserve settlement in central bank money and the existing banking system. Stablecoins remain a competing model, with industry participants citing their liquidity and round-the-clock availability.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has issued tokenised MAS Bills in live trials settled with wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), while a separate international initiative has completed real-money tests of multi-currency wholesale settlement. Together, the trials show how central banks are developing institutional payment infrastructure that differs from privately issued stablecoins.
On its Singapore Dollar Test Network, or SGD Testnet, MAS completed an initial S$1 million, one-week tokenised bill tranche, followed by a S$10 million tranche scheduled to mature on October 23, 2026. MAS Managing Director Chia Der Jiun told the INSEAD Digital Finance and Agentic AI Summit on October 9, 2026, that bringing tokenised government securities and wholesale CBDC onto common infrastructure would anchor monetary stability and settlement finality.
The question is not simply whether digital tokens can move quickly. For central banks, it is also what backs those tokens, whether they retain their value against other forms of money, and how reliably large transactions can settle when markets are under stress.
Singapore tests settlement in central bank money
MAS’s trial pairs a tokenised security with a digital form of central bank money intended for wholesale use. That pairing allows delivery-versus-payment settlement: the security and its payment can be exchanged together, rather than leaving one party waiting after it has transferred its side of a transaction. In foreign-exchange transactions, a related mechanism called payment-versus-payment coordinates the exchange of both currencies.
Wholesale CBDC puts the cash leg of such transactions in central bank money rather than a private reserve-backed token. That distinction matters to central banks because settlement in central bank money does not depend on the issuer of a private token meeting a redemption claim. The trial does not establish that every operational challenge of tokenised markets has been resolved, but it tests how the money and asset sides of a transaction can operate on shared infrastructure.
MAS had already tested another use of the SGD Testnet. In late 2025, DBS, OCBC and UOB demonstrated atomic overnight interbank lending settlements, with the transactions reflected directly in official books and regulatory filings. Atomic settlement means the linked parts of a transaction complete together.
Singapore is not treating wholesale CBDC as its only approach to digital money. MAS is pairing the wholesale work with a separate statutory Single-Currency Stablecoin framework, distinguishing the regulation of retail digital payment tokens from infrastructure for institutional clearing.
Project Agorá tests cross-border transactions
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) completed Project Agorá’s real-value testing in late 2026. Twenty-eight financial institutions and five central banks executed 30 real-money transactions worth CHF 800,000 across six currencies. Average settlement time was 80 seconds.
The participating central banks were the Bank of England, Bank of France representing the Eurosystem, Bank of Japan, Swiss National Bank and Bank of Korea. Scotiabank formally joined the initiative on September 29, 2026, following the addition of the Bank of Canada to the broader multi-currency settlement effort. More than 40 commercial institutions are involved in Project Agorá, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank.
The live test also had a notable limit. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York took part in the initial design and prototype phase but did not participate in the July 2026 real-money transactions. The U.S. dollar was therefore the only currency in the live testing without direct central bank settlement participation. The transaction count, value and speed demonstrate a test of real payments, not proof that the platform has reached the scale of established payment systems.
Why deposits and stablecoins differ
The BIS argues that tokenised commercial bank deposits help preserve the “singleness of money”: the expectation that different forms of money exchange at par. Deposits remain connected to a banking system that ultimately clears back to central bank reserves. Bearer-style stablecoins, by contrast, can trade below their intended value or lose their peg during market stress.
The models also affect the banking system differently. Tokenised deposits retain the two-tier arrangement in which commercial banks take deposits and extend credit, while central banks supply settlement money. Full-reserve stablecoins hold liquid assets against their tokens, tying up funds that would otherwise be available for credit intermediation.
Those arguments are contested. Crypto and payments firms point to stablecoins’ existing transaction volumes, liquidity, round-the-clock availability and lower operational friction compared with emerging central bank networks. Central banks and the BIS, however, cite run risk, fragmented liquidity and the absence of central bank liquidity backstops as obstacles to using private tokens for systemic interbank clearing.
Policy approaches are also diverging. European and Asian authorities are pursuing sovereign wholesale infrastructure, while U.S. federal legislative efforts have included anti-CBDC provisions alongside an emphasis on prudential rules for private dollar stablecoins. The MAS and Project Agorá tests provide evidence of what the public-sector model can do; they do not settle how broadly it will be adopted.
Mastercard and Visa are extending stablecoin technology into the systems that settle card payments between financial institutions, while leaving the consumer checkout experience largely unchanged. Mastercard completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK in August 2026 and has expanded its network’s settlement options to include regulated stablecoins. Visa, meanwhile, is working with Stripe-owned Bridge and Lead Bank on on-chain settlement for card programs. The shift became more concrete in September, when SoFi Bank moved its credit and debit card issuing portfolio to live settlement using its bank-issued SoFiUSD. That portfolio represents more than $25 billion in annualized card volume, a measure distinct from the value settled in stablecoins. Visa separately reported an annualized stablecoin settlement run rate exceeding $25 billion in October. The networks’ initiatives target the back-end movement and reconciliation of funds, including periods when traditional bank settlement rails are unavailable; they do not require merchants to accept cryptocurrency.
The European Central Bank has launched Pontes, a bridge connecting tokenised-asset platforms to the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services for wholesale settlement in central bank money. The arrangement enables atomic delivery-versus-payment settlement, in which an asset and its payment move together. It does not yet make wholesale settlement available around the clock: Pontes depends on T2 operating hours and requires tokenised central bank money balances to be defunded at the end of the day. ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone says the Eurosystem plans to extend Pontes operating hours substantially by mid-2027 and reach 24/7/365 availability in 2028. Separately, the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agorá has tested cross-border payments using a shared programmable ledger that brings tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves into a single settlement process. Both initiatives address delays and liquidity demands in wholesale payments, but neither makes continuous, cross-border settlement available today.
Project Agorá’s real-value testing settled 30 live, multi-currency transactions worth approximately CHF 800,000, with atomic settlement averaging about 80 seconds. The tests involved 28 commercial institutions and five central banks. The result shows how tokenised commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves could support faster cross-border settlement, though it does not establish that settlement latency has been eliminated. The project’s prototype found that tokenisation did not change the legal character or regulatory obligations of deposits and reserves. Its design also let participating institutions conduct compliance checks concurrently. Seven more commercial banks joined in September 2026, taking private-sector participation to nearly 50 institutions. At Sibos in October, banking executives described the testing pipeline as a step towards production trials alongside the European Central Bank’s Pontes platform. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York did not participate in the live test transactions, an important qualification for the US dollar tests.
Ripple’s final federal trust bank charter, a Moody’s investment-grade rating for RLUSD and a planned expansion of the stablecoin’s availability on Coinbase have strengthened its position as a regulated digital dollar. Coinbase said Global Exchange access, including eligibility to use RLUSD as trading collateral, will follow its initial retail and prime rollout. Moody’s assigned RLUSD an A2 long-term deposit rating and a P-1 short-term rating, the first investment-grade rating it has given a stablecoin. The distinctions behind those developments matter. Ripple National Trust Bank manages RLUSD’s reserve collateral, but the legal issuer remains Standard Custody & Trust Company, a New York-regulated Ripple subsidiary. The national trust bank is uninsured and cannot take commercial retail deposits or extend credit. Moody’s also noted that holders do not currently own the underlying reserves directly and that statutory bankruptcy protections depend on implementation of the GENIUS Act, whose rules take effect in January 2027.
Ramp partnered with Stripe and Bridge in July 2026 to deploy stablecoin rails for business bill payments and yield-bearing stablecoin accounts funded through standard fiat bank accounts. The arrangement shows how stablecoins can be incorporated into familiar payment workflows without requiring businesses to fund every transaction with digital assets. The economics depend on more than the cost of moving a token on-chain. Stripe charges merchants 1.5% for stablecoin checkout transactions, versus its standard card-processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30; neither figure establishes the price of Ramp’s bill-payment service. Businesses receiving fiat may also face foreign-exchange and off-ramp costs, typically 0.3% to 2.0% when converting into local banking systems. Domestic clearing networks and compliance checks remain part of end-to-end delivery. Bridge’s issuance and transfer tools, alongside its conditional U.S. trust-bank approval, illustrate the infrastructure behind those payments—but not the elimination of every payment cost.
StraitsX has opened onboarding for digital payment token providers across more than 100 markets through an expanded card-issuing architecture developed with Visa. Integration documentation published on 26 October 2026 describes a multi-BIN model that combines issuing sponsorship, transaction authorization, compliance screening and fiat clearing. The approach lets participating providers build stablecoin-backed card products while merchants continue to receive conventional fiat payments through Visa’s network. StraitsX says its card gross transaction value rose 40-fold year on year from Q4 2024 to Q4 2025, while cards issued across Asia increased 83-fold. On-chain issuer telemetry recorded monthly card transaction volume of $310 million to $438 million through October 2026. The company’s stated $6 billion annualized card transaction figure is distinct from its cumulative $70 billion in processed stablecoin volume. StraitsX and Visa have also scheduled demonstrations of agentic payments for November 2026.