The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has unveiled plans for the implementation of a tokenized corporate network as part of Project Guardian, a pilot initiative spearheaded by executives from JPMorgan Chase and Apollo. On November 15th, MAS announced five additional pilot phases for Project Guardian, which includes 17 member financial institutions such as JPMorgan and Apollo, to test various stages of asset tokenization.
JPMorgan Chase and Apollo announced their collaboration aiming to test crypto assets for a more seamless investment and management experience in investment management and alternative assets, featuring automated portfolio rebalancing mechanisms and data usage customization.
In an interview, Christine Moy from Apollo Global Management discussed how the tokenization of production quality assisted in the development of JPMorgan’s new intraday repurchase agreement product. Tyrone Lobban, who heads the blockchain project, mentioned that the system already manages assets worth $900 billion and stated, “In fact, there was no intraday repo market before, and now we are conducting about $2 billion worth of intraday repo transactions daily through our platform.”
According to Moy, the system operates like a corporate network and she believes it has the advantage of being an early mover in the race to offer tokenized investment instruments. Moy highlighted the progress of Ethereum and its network effects as an example of how first movers have advanced, and how they now see all the next-generation innovations being created here.
Known as Project Guardian, the corporate network offers scalability by enabling applications to be added for accessibility for existing KYC-compliant corporate banks, individual clients, and asset managers. On November 24th, MAS announced measures to curb speculation in crypto investments for Digital Payment Token (DPT) service providers, including increasing customer risk awareness and rejecting credit card acquisitions, thus ensuring that MAS’s DPT service providers help individual customers avoid price speculation.