Five systemically important banks have set up a non profit, the Global Layer One Organisation (GL1 Org), to develop common frameworks for tokenized financial markets and push for their adoption. The founders are HSBC, Kinexys by JP Morgan, MUFG, Societe Generale FORGE and Standard Chartered, and they are inviting others to join, including market infrastructures, fintechs and policymakers. The move transitions GL1 from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to the industry.
MAS launched GL1 three years ago under Project Guardian with a bold ambition, a shared open distributed ledger for regulated finance, sometimes described as a global unified ledger. That didn’t happen. Sources told Ledger Insights the founders were uncomfortable about relinquishing intellectual property rights. So the project settled for something more modest, agreeing on rules rather than building the rails.
The result was two toolkits published last year. One is a checklist for assessing whether a network is fit to engage with. The other covers programmable compliance, embedding regulatory requirements into the infrastructure itself rather than bolting them on afterwards. Four of the five founders worked on them, together with Euroclear, which is not among the founders of the new body.
Article continues …
Want the full story? Pro subscribers get complete articles, exclusive industry analysis, and early access to legislative updates that keep you ahead of the competition. Join the professionals who are choosing deeper insights over surface level news.
