DBS Vickers, the brokerage arm of DBS Bank, announced yesterday (August 12) that it has received primary approval from the Singapore Monetary Authority (MAS) under the Payment Services Act (PS Act) to provide digital payment services as the main payment institution.
This makes them the second cryptocurrency player in Singapore to get early approval from MAS to offer token services, then Independent Australian cryptographic exchange reserve was allowed to operate as a fully regulated digital asset service provider last week.
According to the Press release, DBS Vickers, part of the DBS Digital Exchange (DDEX), will be able to directly support asset managers and companies to operate digital payment tokens once they receive the full license.
It is currently unclear when the service will be deployed, as DBS Vickers is working on the follow-up needed to meet MAS requirements for the operating license.
Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, head of DBS’s capital markets group, commented: “We are pleased to have made steady progress in our digital asset ecosystem over the six months since we launched DDEx last year, and this is shown in our negotiation and custody activity “.
“We have seen great interest among asset managers and companies in accessing digital payment token services, and with DBSV receiving approval in principle under the PS Act, we are well placed to meet this growing demand This could be added to DDEx volumes in the coming months and, along with the fact that DDEx is up and running all day, would help accelerate DDEx growth “.
“We are confident of doubling our investor base by the end of the year. This augurs our ability to provide integrated solutions to the entire value chain of digital assets, especially in the form of STOs, leveraging the experience of DBS in sourcing offerings to tokenization, listing, distribution, trading and custody. This will contribute to Singapore’s ambitions to be a hub of digital assets in Asia, ”he added.
Constant growth of digital exchange
Since the launch of the DBS digital exchange, at the end of June 2021, nearly 400 institutional and accredited investors have been incorporated to trade on the stock exchange. This exceeds the 120 investors of the previous quarter, which represents a growth of more than 233% growth in number.
The digital exchange also recorded about 180 million US dollars in total trade value in the second quarter of this year, more than five times the value traded in the previous quarter. The bank also revealed that it has more than $ 130 million in digital assets in its custody services.
Currently, traders can trade four cryptocurrencies on the DBS digital exchange: Bitcoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash and XRP.
In the previous earnings call, DBS CEO Piyush he shared an optimistic view of the future of cryptocurrency.
I think, given the amount of interest in the four crypts we market now, that interest is pretty high. And so I think he will recover. But if it reaches tens of millions or hundreds of millions of revenue over the next few years, it’s hard to say.
So my thought is that we should get into it, understand it and grow it, and then we’ll have a better idea of the size it could have over time.
– Piyush Gupta, CEO of DBS
MAS continues to examine applications
Apart from DBS Vickers, MAS recently notified some other applicants that they will also be granted the payment services license under the Payment Services Act.
They are among the first batch of license recipients to operate digital payment token services in Singapore.
MAS has also shared with Forkast News who have received more than 170 license applications from digital payment token service providers. Thirty applications were withdrawn after the commitment with MAS and two were rejected.
Featured Image Credit: DBS Vickers / Edgar Su via Reuters
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