Laying the Foundations for the Future of Financial Infrastructure

 

 

Delivered at the Singapore FinTech Festival, global financial leaders unveiled the GL One Initiative, a transformative shared ledger platform aimed at enhancing financial infrastructure and driving adoption of digital assets through interoperability, security, and trust.

 

Key Highlights

1. GL One’s Unique Value Proposition

Interoperable Infrastructure:

A shared ledger platform designed to support multiple regulated financial institutions globally, enabling:

  • Standardisation across jurisdictions.
  • Asset-Agnostic Operations: Seamlessly managing payments, securities, and tokenized assets.
  • Global Collaboration: Built to bridge traditional financial services with emerging digital ecosystems.

Built for Financial Institutions:

Designed by banks for banks, addressing critical challenges in compliance, privacy, and security.

Technology-Driven Efficiency:

Offers cost mutualisation, enhanced resilience, and operational scalability.

 

2. Addressing Industry Bottlenecks

Fragmented Digital Ecosystem:

  • Existing public blockchains face limitations, including lack of known validators, probabilistic finality, and compliance risks.
  • Private blockchains often lack the scalability and openness required for global adoption.

Operational Challenges:

  • High friction in cross-chain asset mobility.
  • Complex messaging infrastructures like SWIFT, limiting seamless interoperability.

Regulatory Alignment:

  • Meeting stringent requirements for KYC, AML, and data segregation.
  • Ensuring trust and finality in tokenized transactions.

 

3. Core Principles and Features

Standardisation and Compliance:

  • Develops industry-wide specifications for digital assets and financial products.
  • Leverages existing frameworks like CAST for seamless interoperability.

Four-Layer Architecture:

1.    Core Ledger: Foundation for transaction validation.

2.    Asset Layer: Facilitates tokenization and composability.

3.    Application Layer: Customisable for jurisdictional regulations.

4.    Access Layer: Secure authentication and participation.

Privacy and Security:

  • Ensures data segregation and compliance with global regulatory frameworks.
  • Leverages permissioned validators to meet institutional-grade security standards.

 

4. Strategic Applications

Tokenization Use Cases:

  • Money Market Funds: Enabling collateral mobility and enhanced liquidity.
  • Digital Bonds: Streamlining issuance and settlement processes.
  • Private Funds: Broadening distribution while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Cross-Border Solutions:

  • Tackles challenges in liquidity fragmentation and cross-chain collateral mobility.
  • Supports interoperability between private and public chains.

Operational Efficiency:

  • Mutualised costs across participants reduce operational overhead.
  • Distributed systems enhance resilience and reduce downtime risks.

 

5. Collaborative Development

Global Industry Participation:

  • Key players like J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, BNY, MUFG, and Societe Generale-Forge bring deep expertise and resources.

Open Ecosystem:

  • GL One is designed to complement existing platforms like Partior and BIS initiatives like Project Agora.
  • Collaboration across public and private sectors to drive adoption.

Inclusive Vision:

  • Open to regulated institutions globally to ensure wide participation and consistent standards.

 

6. Vision for the Future

Long-Term Goals:

  • Create a unified infrastructure for regulated financial services, fostering innovation.
  • Bridge traditional and digital finance to unlock new growth opportunities.

Accelerating Digital Adoption:

  • Standardised architecture to simplify development and deployment of digital asset solutions.
  • Foster global collaboration to build resilient and interoperable financial systems.

Commitment to Trust and Security:

  • Enable secure, scalable networks for financial institutions.
  • Ensure finality, privacy, and compliance in all transactions.

Conclusion

GL One represents a bold step toward creating a shared financial infrastructure that fosters innovation, enhances interoperability, and ensures trust across global financial markets. By addressing current bottlenecks and enabling seamless tokenization, GL One is set to redefine how financial institutions operate in the digital era.

 

Speakers:

  • Andrew Murray, Head of Institutional Strategic Investments, Citigroup
  • Caroline Butler, Global Head of Digital Assets, BNY
  • Jean-Marc Stenger, Chief Executive Officer, Societe Generale - FORGE
  • Masashi Watanabe, Managing Director, Deputy Head of Digital Strategy Division, MUFG Bank, Ltd.
  • Naveen Mallela, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan

 

 Moderator:

  • Alan Lim, Director & Head, Financial Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence Office, Monetary Authority of Singapore
 
 

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