Singapore Exchange, Temasek tie up for digital asset venture

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore Exchange Ltd and Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings are jointly starting a digital assets venture that will focus on capital market products such as bonds.

"The early success in our digital bond issuance platform has paved the way for SGX to make a larger move into digital assets," Lee Beng Hong, head of fixed income, currencies and commodities at SGX, said in a statement on Friday.

The venture comes after Asia's first digital syndicated public corporate bond of Olam International was completed last year by SGX, HSBC and Temasek.

Globally, tech companies, exchanges and banks are experimenting with blockchain, a digital ledger of transactions, and smart contracts to boost efficiency and cut costs and settlement periods, while authorities explore whether and how best to regulate this.

Temasek has built up a team with expertise in blockchain technology and partnered with banks and the central bank in related projects.

SGX and Temasek said the joint venture will partner with fixed income issuance platforms to connect to its post-trade and asset servicing infrastructure. It will utilise smart contracts, and ledger and tokenisation technologies.

The venture will also focus on other asset classes such as funds and sustainable finance.

(Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Karishma Singh)