Through real-world use case applications with IDEMIA on Hedera, Mastercard and Carbonseed.Earth, StraitsX provides insights to the benefits stablecoins can bring to trade and commerce

SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 3 November 2022 - StraitsX, a Major Payment Institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today announced that it will be piloting a series of stablecoin applications at the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) 2022, which aims to showcase stablecoins' real-world use case applications and benefits for trade and commerce.

Through collaborations with partners such as IDEMIA, The HBAR Foundation, Mastercard and Carbonseed.Earth, StraitsX focused on driving five key benefits of stablecoins: increasing payment efficiency, on-chain and offline programmability providing interoperability, spurring financial inclusion and enabling sustainable and energy-efficient transactions.

"The digital assets landscape has been evolving and gaining traction as more businesses recognise the benefits of blockchain technology, but there is still untapped potential when it comes to using stablecoins as a means of payment in real-world use case applications. These applications demonstrate how stablecoins can bring forth more innovation and we are excited to collaborate with industry leaders to explore the benefits of stablecoins in depth to showcase the viability of stablecoin usage in business applications like B2B settlement, offline payments and sustainability." said Aymeric Salley, Head of StraitsX.

As part of the stablecoin showcase, StraitsX has highlighted three different real-world use case applications with its key partners, which leverage its Singapore dollar stablecoin, XSGD as a means of payment:

Driving financial inclusion with IDEMIA on Hedera

To mitigate the issue of unequal access to digital currencies and payments arising from network and geographical limitations, StraitsX has partnered with IDEMIA, a leading solutions provider in identity technologies to leverage the Hedera decentralised ledger, enabling users to transact stablecoins offline. This is powered by IDEMIA's payment card and phone-embedded offline payment capabilities which allow users and merchants to transact offline securely. Merchants will then be able to leverage Hedera's distributed network to receive payments and settle fund transfers.

This application will not only lower merchant fees but also drive financial inclusion by allowing users who have limited network access to transact stablecoins.

"We at IDEMIA firmly believe that stablecoins are redefining the very fundamentals of the payment ecosystem. We're proud that our ability to innovate has enabled Stablecoins payments leveraging our Biometric Card technology F.CODE. This partnership demonstrates again that IDEMIA's secure offline payment solution became the de facto standard for stablecoins payments." said Romain Zanolo, Managing Director APAC at IDEMIA.

"We are delighted to partner with industry leaders StraitsX and Idemia to help drive financial inclusion in APAC. StraitsX' upcoming Hedera-native XSGD stablecoin was combined with Idemia's secure offline payment system powered by Hedera smart contracts, to provide a resilient, cost-effective, and energy-efficient alternative to existing digital payment schemes. We believe the solution is well suited to answer needs in the region." said Sabrina Tachdjian, Head of Fintech & Payments at the HBAR foundation.

Enabling XSGD B2B Settlement with Mastercard

StraitsX and Mastercard, a global payment technology solution, have partnered to enable Mastercard crypto partners to use XSGD to facilitate settlements between businesses.

The current settlement process for crypto card partners is cumbersome and costly due to the requirement of converting from crypto into fiat, which imposes liquidity and operational constraints for card partners. This pilot aims to bridge between the digital assets spent by cardholders and the fiat currencies needed to settle with merchants, reducing friction and achieving greater operational efficiencies.

"Building on the success of our stablecoin pilots in the US and UK, we are excited to be partnering with StraitsX to continue pushing the frontier on digital assets innovation and exploring real-world benefits of stablecoins. Piloting a stablecoin settlement application using XSGD marks a meaningful step forward for our businesses in the APAC region." said Ashok Venkateshwaran, VP Digital Assets at Mastercard.

Spearheading sustainability in the region with Carbonseed.Earth

To contribute to the wider sustainability cause, StraitsX has collaborated with Carbonseed.Earth, which is building an incubation infrastructure for carbon projects. This incubation infrastructure leverages stablecoin and IoT technology to enable early funding for quality carbon projects by issuing tokenized carbon credits, purchased through XSGD and held in blockchain wallets.

By utilising Carbonseed.Earth's monitoring and verification solutions and blockchain wallets to facilitate stablecoin and carbon credit transactions, the application enhances transparency for price discovery and addresses the issue of double counting through smart contract technology. On a larger scale, the application also helps to facilitate efficient cross-border transfers of value involving tokenised carbon credits.

"CarbonSeed.Earth aims to be the one-stop managing platform for businesses to go green with hassle-free carbon financing, with services ranging from simple project origination and Monitoring, Reporting, Verification (MRV), to marketplace financing. By leveraging on XSGD, we can enable greater transparency, accountability, and visibility using the concepts of Purpose Bound Money (PBM) to verify fund sources and automated milestone verification to unlock payouts and reward businesses as they embark on their green transformation journey." said Mike Sun, VP Product, CarbonSeed.Earth.

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About StraitsX

StraitsX is the pioneering payments infrastructure for the digital assets space in Southeast Asia. StraitsX is a Major Payment Institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and is part of Fazz's ecosystem of financial services which powers business banking in Southeast Asia. StraitsX offers personal and business account holders to mint and redeem StraitsX stablecoins, manage payments as well as connect their accounts to digital asset platforms. Business accounts can also access B2B API-enabled payment rails for digital asset platforms.