Deutsche Bank joins Singapore's Project Guardian to advance asset tokenization

Deutsche Bank has announced its collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Project Guardian, an initiative focused on asset tokenization for wholesale funding markets and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.

Deutsche Bank’s role in this collaborative effort is to test the open architecture and interoperable blockchain platform to service tokenized and digital funds. The bank is also tasked with drawing up proposals for protocol standards.

Boon-Hiong Chan, Deutsche Bank’s Asia Pacific head of securities and technology, will lead the bank’s efforts in Project Guardian. The bank will also be working with Memento Blockchain, a platform for DeFi and digital asset management. Between 2022 and 2023, Deutsche Bank completed a proof-of-concept project with Memento Blockchain.

Following this collaboration, Deutsche Bank’s new effort aims to introduce DAMA 2, which will involve Interop Labs, the initial developer of the Axelar network, an interoperable blockchain. Axelar has been working with several prominent crypto firms including Ripple to add interoperability to their blockchain networks.

Project Guardian is an initiative from Singapore’s MAS which began in 2022. The project involves a slew of financial market players, including regulatory agencies from Japan, Switzerland, and the UK.

Deutsche Bank’s entrance into Singapore’s tokenization project follows the bank’s recent report on stablecoins , which raised questions about the transparency of major issuers like Tether (USDT). Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin with a market value of nearly $111 billion, has since responded to Deutsche Bank over its claims, stating that the report lacked substantial evidence and concrete data to support its assertions.