An approach to regulation that balances clear guidelines with a willingness to innovate has positioned Singapore at the forefront of developments in asset tokenisation.

MAS Initiatives and Early Projects

Speaking at the Singapore FinTech Festival 2025 last November, Chia Der Jiun, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), noted that the regulator started its journey with asset-backed tokens with the launch of Project Guardian in 2022, since when money market funds have been tokenised and bonds have been issued natively and settled on chain.

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Alvin Chia – Head of Digital Assets Innovation, Asia Pacific, Northern Trust — Alvin Chia, Head of Digital Assets Innovation, Asia Pacific, Northern Trust

A few weeks later, Lim Tuang Lee, MAS assistant managing director (capital markets), told the Futures Industry Association Asia Derivatives Conference that interest in tokenisation arrangements among market participants was growing steadily.

To facilitate this growth, MAS has launched the settlement equivalent of Project Guardian to support industry trials with tokenised bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins for settlement, and established an operational shared ledger infrastructure that enables financial institutions to test the settlement of tokenised financial assets using wholesale CBDC.

Ecosystem Strengths and Market Infrastructure

Huan Kiat – Fintech Director, PhillipCapital — Huan Kiat, Fintech Director, PhillipCapital

Singapore’s dense concentration of global asset managers, banks, and wealth platforms makes it possible to test tokenisation across the full value chain, including issuance, distribution, servicing, and settlement, observes Justin Christopher, head of Asia at Calastone.

“Crucially, Singapore understands tokenisation isn’t about experimenting with technology; it’s about building efficient, cross-border market infrastructure,” he says. “This pragmatic mindset has kept the focus on real outcomes.”

The ecosystem works because policymakers, banks, asset managers, and fintechs sit at the same table and move from whitepaper to pilot quickly.

There is also deep capital markets expertise, which means tokenisation is approached as market infrastructure reform rather than crypto speculation.

Chetan Karkhanis – SVP, Digital Asset Partnership Development, Franklin Templeton — Chetan Karkhanis, SVP, Digital Asset Partnership Development, Franklin Templeton

That is the view of Alvin Chia, head of digital assets innovation Asia Pacific for Northern Trust, who agrees that Singapore understands that interoperability and cross-border use cases rather than domestic scale alone will define success.

Regulatory Support and Collaboration

Singapore’s leadership in asset tokenisation reflects a deliberate push to modernise capital markets infrastructure, agrees Huan Kiat, fintech director at PhillipCapital.

“The MAS has created space for experimentation while maintaining strong regulatory guardrails, which has given market participants confidence to test real-world use cases,” he adds. “At the same time, Singapore’s ecosystem of banks, asset managers, and fintech firms has been willing to collaborate on pilots involving real assets and real capital.”

Efficiency and Adoption

Duncan Trenholme – Managing Director, TP ICAP Fusion Digital Assets — Duncan Trenholme, Managing Director, TP ICAP Fusion Digital Assets

Tokenisation exists to improve market infrastructure rather than chase temperamental price swings, as the ecosystem is compact and decision-makers are accessible.

“Because of this, pilot programmes can move into production relatively quickly and adoption across the board becomes easier,” suggests Chetan Karkhanis, SVP, digital asset partnership development at Franklin Templeton.

The high level of crypto asset activity across Asia has translated into a deeper institutional comfort with blockchain‑based products among investors, founders, and financial firms, adds Duncan Trenholme, managing director, TP ICAP Fusion Digital Assets.

“At the same time, Singapore’s position as a global financial hub gives it the kind of ecosystem where new market plumbing can be tested at scale rather than in isolation,” he says.

Varied Adoption Across Asset Classes

The broad scope of applications and fragmentation of models/systems means that the pace of adoption for tokenisation differs for each financial asset, notes Hubert Grignon Dumoulin, digital assets senior expert at CACEIS.

Hubert Grignon Dumoulin – Digital Assets Senior Expert, CACEIS — Hubert Grignon Dumoulin, Digital Assets Senior Expert, CACEIS

“The biggest and most obvious use case is stablecoins (tokenisation of fiat money), followed by intra-day repo operations with issuance of non-native securities tokens representing custody positions of government bonds and short-term papers,” he says.

Scaling Challenges and Interoperability

According to Danny Chong, co-chair of the Digital Assets Association Singapore, the path to scaling tokenisation rests on overcoming the adoption gap, specifically the challenge of achieving interoperability across networks and harmonising global regulatory standards.

“The focus must shift toward democratising access through frameworks that reduce operational complexity, ensuring that the next wave of financial innovation delivers efficiency and liquidity for both institutional and retail participants,” he says.

The biggest constraint is not technology—it is aligning legal finality, accounting treatment, and regulatory clarity across jurisdictions so institutions can commit balance sheets at scale, says Chia.

Liquidity is another hurdle, because tokenised assets must plug into existing distribution and collateral frameworks rather than operate in isolated pools. Operationally, firms need robust custody, lifecycle servicing, and risk controls that mirror traditional markets.

Danny Chong – Co-Chair, Digital Assets Association Singapore — Danny Chong, Co-Chair, Digital Assets Association Singapore

Ankur Kanwar, head of transaction banking & cash management, Singapore and ASEAN, and global head of cash structured solutions development, Standard Chartered, agrees that the challenges are less about the availability of the technology and more about institutional and structural factors.

“Variations in regulatory frameworks, the high friction across settlement infrastructures, and limited adoption of digital trade solutions and standards can all affect the scalability of tokenisation,” he says.

“As tokenisation scales, cybersecurity risks and operational resilience will also become increasingly important considerations, and the long-term risks need to be carefully managed.”

Market Awareness and Education

Client adoption, demand, and uptake by traditional incumbents are not fully there yet, and education and awareness are also not fully at scale, as cryptocurrencies, virtual native assets, and tokenised products are all lumped into one definition, in some cases preventing meaningful mass adoption and understanding, reckons Karkhanis.

Risk Management in Tokenised Markets

As more lifecycle logic, margining, and settlement migrate into smart contracts reliant on external data feeds, the system also inherits new points of failure, warns Trenholme.

Ankur Kanwar, Global Head of Cash Structured Solutions Development, Standard Chartered

“Traditional markets are slow, but latency often functions as a circuit breaker,” he explains. “In tokenised markets, an inaccurate oracle print or flawed contract can propagate instantly—so building resilience through standards, safeguards, and fail‑safe architecture is as important as improving efficiency.”

Interoperability is another constraint. Markets will ultimately require ‘write once, run anywhere’ infrastructure so assets can move seamlessly across public and permissioned networks.

Christopher notes that tokenised assets must plug seamlessly into custody, administration, compliance, and reporting frameworks, and that institutions will not compromise on governance, auditability, or investor protection.

“Without established connectivity between issuers and distributors, tokenised products remain niche,” he adds. “Real adoption requires infrastructure allowing assets to move safely and efficiently across established and digital-native venues.”

Kiat cautions that scaling tokenisation remains complex, and while the underlying technology can enhance settlement efficiency and programmability, adoption depends on more than just technical capability.

“Interoperability across platforms, liquidity depth, custody arrangements, and cross-border regulatory alignment all need to evolve in parallel,” he concludes. “Secondary market readiness will also be critical, as tokenised assets require reliable distribution channels and consistent two-way liquidity for investors to enter and exit with confidence.”