Singapore Readies International Blockchain Payments Network for Adoption

Singapore has successfully developed a blockchain payments network ready for commercial adoption, the nation’s financial authorities said Monday.

Called Project Ubin, the joint endeavor is supported by the city-state’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and the island nation’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, plus JPMorgan. The network allows for faster, cheaper, and safer international payments, according to a joint report.

While still a prototype, the network allows payments in different currencies to be cleared and settled within the same network using distributed ledger technology, the firms said. MAS and Temasek asserted that Project Ubin was developed to be production-ready.

Additional technical details on the prototype would also be made publicly available to spur additional innovation from the industry, MAS and Temasek said.

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“This has built a strong foundation of knowledge, expertise, and experience, and paved a path towards commercial adoption,” Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at MAS, said in a statement.

“This validates Temasek’s efforts in exploring and building blockchain solutions focusing on digital identity, digital currencies, and financial asset tokenization,” Chia Song Hwee, deputy chief executive at Temasek, said in a statement.

“We look forward to supporting commercialization efforts emanating from Project Ubin and other application areas, with a view to drive greater adoption of blockchain technology,” he added.

Temasek has long been vocal about its support of a blockchain-based payments network, which advocates say would save billions of dollars in transaction fees. In 2017, deputy chief Chia said the allocator will support the next generation of distributed ledger technology.

Earlier this year, Temasek also joined Libra Association, the global consortium backed by Facebook that’s developing a blockchain-based currency. Members of the Libra network are expected to act as validator nodes, which are independent individuals or servers on the blockchain that validate and maintain an immutable history of transactions.

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Tags: Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, holding company, Investment, Sovereign Wealth Fund, Temasek

US lawmakers have re-introduced a bipartisan bill intended to create a national online “lost and found” for Americans to track down lost retirement accounts as they move between jobs.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Steve Daines, R-Montana, are sponsoring the Retirement Savings Lost and Found Act in the Senate, while Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Oregon, and Jim Banks, R-Indiana, have introduced the bill in the House of Representatives.

“Millions of Americans lose thousands in savings each year because of lost retirement plans from previous employers and other roadblocks to tracking multiple accounts,” Warren said in a statement. “Our bipartisan Retirement Savings Lost and Found Act of 2020 is a common-sense step we can take now to help hard-working Americans build a little more security and retire with the dignity they deserve.”

The national lost and found for retirement accounts would be created using data employers are required to report to the Treasury Department. The act also makes it easier for plan sponsors to move small accounts into age-appropriate target-date funds (TDFs) so workers can maximize their investment returns. And it would require plan sponsors to send lost, uncashed checks of less than $1,000 to the Treasury so individuals can locate the money.

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The lawmakers said the bill is needed because, as employers have shifted from defined benefit (DB) pensions to defined contribution (DC) plans such as 401(k)s, workers have become responsible for tracking, managing, and consolidating retirement accounts as they move from job to job, which can leave a lot of room for error and lost savings.

The legislators cited investment management company TIAA’s estimate that 30% of all US employees have left a retirement account at a previous employer, including 43% of Generation X workers and 35% of Generation Y workers. And the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said millions more have left two or more accounts behind, with a total of $8.5 billion sitting in lost retirement plans with just $5,000 or less in them between 2004 and 2013.

And the problem is expected to only get worse, the lawmakers said, because young workers switch jobs at a much higher rate than older workers, with a median job tenure of less than three years for workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

The legislation is backed by industry groups the Pension Rights Center, American Benefits Council, the ERISA Industry Committee, and the AARP.

“This is one of the biggest issues that we and pension counselors across the country see, and we’re delighted that this problem will finally get solved,” Karen Friedman, executive vice president and policy director of the Pension Rights Center, said in a statement. “This will help millions of people who have earned their pensions—but can’t find them.”