HSBC, JPMorgan, and Three Other Banks Form Tokenized Market Infrastructure Organization

November 5 - According to The Business Times, five institutions—HSBC, JPMorgan's Kinexys, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), Societe Generale-Forge, and Standard Chartered—have announced the establishment of a non-profit organization, Global Layer One Organisation (GL1 Org), in Singapore to promote the implementation of common standards and frameworks for tokenized financial market infrastructure.

The five banks stated in a joint announcement on the same day that GL1 Org aims to support the development and adoption of common standards and frameworks for tokenized financial markets. Ruby Ho, Managing Director of ASEAN Markets and Securities Services at HSBC, said that tokenization has the potential to make financial markets faster, more efficient, and more interconnected, but these benefits can only be realized if customers trust the underlying infrastructure. The organization stated that as tokenization accelerates globally, a common approach will help financial institutions operate more confidently across infrastructure in an increasingly diverse ecosystem.

The organization builds on the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) GL1 initiative. MAS's GL1 explores shared ledger infrastructure to enable regulated financial institutions across jurisdictions to deploy tokenized assets; since its launch, it has developed a control framework for assessing the suitability of market infrastructure, as well as a structured approach for embedding regulatory and policy requirements into digital financial infrastructure. GL1 Org will continue to promote the development and adoption of these frameworks, advance trusted and interoperable digital financial infrastructure, and foster connectivity among institutions, infrastructure, and jurisdictions. The organization welcomes participation from financial institutions, policymakers, market infrastructure providers, fintech companies, and other stakeholders. Patrick Lee, CEO of Standard Chartered Singapore and ASEAN & South Asia, said that tokenization and distributed ledger technology are fundamental to the evolution of financial services, and amid the emergence of various digital financial market infrastructures on public and private chain networks, establishing policy, regulatory, and market infrastructure standards is crucial for interoperability and global scaling.