JPMorgan CEO Tyrone Lobban noted that the new system has processed more than $900 billion in assets since its launch.
Senior executives at US-based financial services firms JPMorgan Chase and Apollo Global Management have revealed their plans for the tokenized enterprise mainnet, developed in collaboration with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The duo worked together on the MAS crypto pilot project, Project Guardian, designed to explore the tokenization of assets using public blockchains.
Business Mainnet: First-Mover Advantage
After collaborating with MAS to test its new blockchain project, Apollo partner Christine Moy and JPMorgan CEO Tyrone Lobban sat down for an interview with Forbes on November 27 to discuss tokenization and its potential applications in the financial industry.
When asked how digital assets fit within Apollo’s broader mandate, Moy explained how production-grade tokenization led to the creation of JPMorgan’s innovative tradable product, the intraday repository.
According to Moy, the system serves as an enterprise backbone, referring to the intraday repository. The Apollo partner said that the product has the advantage of being the first to offer tokenized investment instruments. Drawing parallels with the success of Ethereum (Ether), he stated that “Obviously, we have seen the progress and innovation of ether, and now that’s where all the next generation innovation has been created.”
Additionally, he highlighted that the enterprise core network provides scalability, allowing software developers the opportunity to deploy applications on a network that already meets Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements for institutional banks, stockbrokers, and assets administrators.
Lobban also weighed in, noting that the new system has processed more than $900 billion in assets since its launch. He said that “before this, there was actually no intraday repo market, and now we are clearing about $2 billion a day in intraday repo transactions through our platform.”
He also emphasized the broader impact of blockchain technology, stating that the public ledger is an exciting technology. “Blockchain is a very interesting technology for efficiency purposes and creating optimized settlements, but in reality, what people don’t necessarily talk about is the ability to create new products, things that didn’t exist before,” he continued.
MAS Reveals Measures for TED Service Providers
On November 15, MAS expanded its Guardian Project by introducing five additional industrial pilots to explore various use cases around asset tokenization. The financial regulator introduced five new initiatives under the project, such as Global Layer One (GL1), where heavyweights such as JPMorgan, Apollo, DBS, BNY Mellon and MUFG explored opportunities designed to simplify cross-border transactions and create liquidity pools.
During the pilot, JPMorgan and Apollo partnered to focus on testing digital assets to improve the seamless management of discretionary portfolios and alternative assets and automate portfolio rebalancing at scale, leading to the creation of the intraday repository.
Other financial institutions involved in Project Guardian, such as Citi, Fidelity, and T Rowe Price, joined forces to explore the use of foreign exchange (FX) and oracles on the Avalanche blockchain. Some of the 17 financial institutions that participated in the pilot are actively working on defining software stacks that enable independent interoperability between different asset groups, showing continued collaboration and commitment to transformative innovation.
Last week, the MAS introduced measures for digital payment token (DPT) service providers to discourage speculation in cryptocurrency investments. These measures include assessing customers’ risk awareness, refusing credit card purchases, and not offering incentives to retail customers to discourage price gouging.
By Audy Castaneda
