International Swaps and Derivatives Association and Ant International publish Project Guardian report on tokenised bank liabilities and shared ledgers for FX settlement and cross-border payments

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Ant International have published a joint industry report under the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Project Guardian setting out an implementation approach for using tokenised bank liabilities and shared ledger infrastructure in cross-border payments and foreign exchange (FX) settlement. The report, available via the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s website, focuses on practical design and risk considerations aimed at enabling interoperable, shared ledger-based transaction banking services. Work led through Project Guardian’s FX workstream covers FX data specifications, risk management frameworks and FX documentation, with contributions including BNY, HSBC, OCBC and the Global Financial Markets Association’s Global Foreign Exchange Division. The report outlines design principles intended to standardise tokenised bank liabilities and support interoperability, identifies key risks and mitigation actions for shared ledger-based payments, and presents use cases including Ant International’s Whale platform for real-time multi-currency clearing and settlement. The release also references estimates of around USD 120 billion in annual cross-border transaction fees and suggests that a widely adopted industry framework could lower cross-border transaction costs by 12.5%, saving businesses more than USD 50 billion by 2030. ISDA, Ant International and the Project Guardian industry group plan to broaden shared ledger and tokenised bank liability applications by developing additional use cases, including integration with existing banking systems and support for other digital assets.