Singapore – Ant International, Grab, and StraitsX announced a collaboration to explore the viability of utilising Purpose Bound Money (PBM) in cross-border payments.
Purpose Bound Money (PBM) is a system that defines the conditions for using an underlying digital currency. PBM, which was first launched by MAS as a component of Project Orchid1, has the potential of lowering payment processing costs and enabling the guided allocation of funds for a specified purpose.
The goal of this collaborative initiative is to make it easier for GrabPay businesses to integrate with Ant International’s Alipay+ solutions, allowing them to accept payments from a diverse tourist audience. If successful, the expansion of cross-border payment capabilities is expected to increase the use of Purpose Bound Money (PBM), with the goal of launching it in Singapore by 2024.
This cross-border payment project aims to expand local merchants’ customer reach while providing benefits to small and micro-scale businesses. Smaller retailers in Singapore have traditionally experienced restrictions in providing a varied range of payment alternatives to international travellers. This constraint is typically linked to the lengthy process and high expenses associated with incorporating new digital payment methods, which can take months or even years.
By leveraging a distributed ledger infrastructure and Purpose Bound Money (PBM), tiny to micro-scale retailers can more easily serve global consumers. This reduces the complexity involved in integrating cross-border payments by doing away with the need for new system upgrades and manual end-of-day reconciliation between accounting systems.
