Chia Der Jiun, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), spoke at the INSEAD Digital Finance & Agentic AI Summit on 9 Oct, according to the MAS transcript. It was a speech, not a rule change. Three points matter for crypto and stablecoin readers.
1. Stablecoins have to earn par, he said
Chia said bank deposits hold value parity because they can be exchanged at par for central bank reserves, and “not a given for stablecoins”. Confidence in their par value must come “primarily through transparency and adequacy of reserve assets”, he said. He added there may be limits to their suitability for settling large wholesale transactions.
He also noted “discussions and proposals” for extra regulatory requirements, and access to central bank reserves, for any future systemically important stablecoins. He did not say MAS would adopt either.
MAS has consulted on legislative amendments for its Single-Currency Stablecoin framework, which sets rules on reserve backing, capital, redemption at par and disclosure, Chia said. The consultation also covers recognising foreign stablecoins regulated under comparable regimes.
Why it matters: it is a regulator restating that reserves and transparency, not branding, support a stablecoin’s claim to hold its value. For the basics, see what a dollar stablecoin is.
2. A “network of networks”, with a wholesale CBDC step
Chia said the future is unlikely to be one global ledger, and that MAS is working on common standards so different networks can interact. Its platform for this is Global Layer One (GL1), which has published a Market Infrastructure Toolkit and a Programmable Compliance Toolkit, he said. Settlement work runs through BLOOM, covering tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins.
MAS will take “a next step” by settling tokenised MAS Bills with Singapore dollar wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), Chia said. A 2025 trial on the SGD testnet settled interbank overnight lending between DBS, OCBC and UOB. The speech gave no launch date for the MAS Bills step.
Why it matters: it shows which rails MAS is backing for institutional tokenisation. The IMF’s recent report on tokenized stocks and their volatility shows how small that market still is.
3. Safeguards for AI agents that move money
Chia said AI agents may increasingly “initiate and execute financial transactions”, and that this needs controls on authority, permissions, identity, accountability and governance. MAS and industry published the Safeguards for Agentic Finance at Runtime (SAFR) white paper earlier this year; the MAS page is dated 3 Jul 2026. He said Version 1.1 has now been published, with an expanded group of financial institutions and AI developers contributing.
SAFR has three parts, according to Chia: establishing agent identity and authorisation, checking proposed agent actions against the user’s mandate before execution, and keeping accountability and an audit trail. MAS has also released an open-source reference implementation through the Future of Finance Institute, he said.
Caveat: SAFR is a proposed approach developed with industry, not a binding MAS requirement. We have not reviewed the text of Version 1.1 itself.
Why it matters: it shows MAS treating AI agents that move money as a supervision question now, ahead of any binding rule.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.