StraitsX, one of the part of Southeast Asia Digital Financial Services Group, Fazz, and Grab, one of the leading superapp in Southeast Asia, recently announced they will be testing the issuance of Purpose Bound Money (PBM) in the form of commercial digital vouchers during the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) 2022.
During SFF, 5,000 selected trial participants will be able to utilise PBM in the form of digital vouchers through their preferred blockchain e-wallet application. They can use the vouchers sponsored by Temasek to make purchases at selected F&B outlets at the SFF 2022, as well as participating Grab’s merchant-partners such as Ishiro at Expo, and Flash Coffee, Han’s, Hotpot by Seoul Garden, and LiHo at Changi City Point.
GrabPay, Grab’s payment service, is working with StraitsX and digital currency payment gateway TripleA to support the last-mile settlement of PBM. This is done by accepting StraitsX’s XSGD on the Polygon chain, and reflecting the Singapore-dollar pegged stablecoin as SGD in the participating merchants’ GrabPay accounts. GrabPay will also be the main merchant payments processor for the PBM pilot at SFF this year – it will pay out to participating merchants in SGD on an on-demand basis, and remove any need for merchants to invest in end-of-day reconciliation between two accounting systems.
“We see this as transformative for the development of the digital assets space as PBM could form a new foundation infrastructure for payments, ensuring secure transactions, ease of use and seamless integration. Building on the work StraitsX has done with the Singapore dollar stablecoin, XSGD, the issuance of PBMs further demonstrates how blockchain technology and stablecoins can be applied in real-world scenarios. We are thrilled to work with industry leaders like Grab to showcase how the programmability and interoperability of stablecoins can make payment systems more efficient, environmentally friendly, and inclusive,” said Liu Tianwei, Deputy CEO of Fazz.
“We believe technology can be harnessed to economically empower our communities in Southeast Asia. The blockchain technology and applications for digital assets have the ability to accelerate financial inclusion. This pilot with StraitsX and the MAS is a great opportunity for us to test how the technology can be used to benefit the everyday user. We are excited to have our merchant-partners participate in this pilot and with their feedback, we hope to uncover more ways to help our users seamlessly participate in this technology and gain from the benefits.” said Wong Wenbin, Head of GrabFin Singapore.
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