Singapore to test blockchain technology for interbank transactions

Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), speaks at the Singapore Fintech Festival in Singapore November 16, 2016. REUTERS/Edgar Su

  16 Nov 2016 , 18:00

In a major move to explore the use of digital currency in Singapore, the city state’s central bank plans to launch a pilot project with the country’s stock exchange and eight local and foreign banks to use blockchain technology for interbank payments. Cross-border foreign currency transactions will also be reviewed under the pilot as Singapore’s central bank looks to position the financial center as an important Fintech hub.

The effort is supported by the R3 blockchain research lab and BCS Information Systems, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), said at the Singapore Fintech Festival. “Under the pilot system banks will deposit cash as collateral with the MAS in exchange for MAS-issued digital currency,” Menon said on Wednesday. The consortium includes Bank of America Merrill Lynch, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd, Credit Suisse, DBS Bank Ltd, The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp Ltd, JP Morgan, OCBC Bank, Singapore Exchange and United Overseas Bank.

Blockchain, which originates from digital currency bitcoin, works as an electronic transaction-processing and record-keeping system that allows all parties to track information through a secure network, with no need for third-party verification. “The next phase of the project will involve transactions in foreign currency, possibly with the support of another central bank,” Menon told an audience of bankers and executives from technology companies.

Policymakers in Singapore have sought to attract investment in Fintech, easing regulation and setting up special departments to support the industry. The MAS on Wednesday also finalised guidelines for a “regulatory sandbox”, which allows financial institutions and finTech players to test their new business models and products without falling foul of financial rules.

Menon also said Singapore is in the process of creating a national know-your-customer or KYC utility through a personal data platform that will have government-verified personal details of residents. The MAS will partner with the government agencies to expand the platform known as “MyInfo service” to the financial industry for more efficient KYC checks.

Singapore has stepped up scrutiny of its banking industry following a money laundering probe linked to Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), which cast a spotlight on one of the world’s leading wealth management centres.

Reuters

Cyber attacks hit Singapore telecom service provider StarHub

Image Credit: StarHub Facebook

  26 Oct 2016 , 14:34

Singaporean telecoms service provider StarHub Ltd said intentional cyber attacks had caused internet connection disruption for some of its home broadband customers on Oct. 22 and Oct. 24. The company said it analysed network logs of the disruptions and found that it had experienced intentional and likely malicious distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on its domain name servers (DNS).

DDoS attackers typically target sites by flooding servers with messages from multiple systems so they are unable to respond to legitimate traffic. StarHub said there was no evidence of any impact on the rest of its services, and the security of its customers’ information was not compromised. “On both occasions, we mitigated the attacks by filtering unwanted traffic and increasing our DNS capacity, and restored service within two hours,” it said in a statement late on Tuesday.

The incidents come close on the heels of attacks on Twitter Inc, PayPal Holdings Inc, Spotify AB and other customers of Dyn, a U.S. company which acts as a switchboard for internet traffic. StarHub said it was investigating the intent and source of the two attacks, which it called “unprecedented in scale, nature and complexity” for the company.

It told Reuters in an email on Wednesday that it does not use Dyn services. As of June 30, StarHub’s residential broadband subscribers totalled 473,000. Singapore authorities on Tuesday advised other telecom firms to strengthen defences to protect against similar disruptions.

Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, the city-state’s biggest telecom operator, said it did not observe any abnormal traffic trends over the weekend but will continue to monitor networks closely. Third-ranked M1 Ltd said it was aware of the cyber-attacks and was on alert.\

Reuters