Purpose-bound money

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Purpose-bound money (PBM) is a Singapore design concept, published by MAS in a white paper of June 2023, under which a digital money token is wrapped in a programmable layer that restricts how, where and when it may be spent. The underlying money may be a tokenised deposit, a stablecoin or CBDC. The wrapper might restrict a government voucher to approved merchants, release an escrow payment on delivery, or limit a corporate travel budget to transport and accommodation.¹

The legal interest of PBM is that it separates the money from the condition. The holder of a PBM token holds money subject to a contractual or programmatic restriction on use. The restriction is a contractual term that sits outside the money itself. When the condition is met the wrapper releases the underlying token unencumbered. For a Swiss lawyer the closest analogue is a conditional transfer or an escrow, and the analysis under the Code of Obligations is that the holder has a conditional claim to the underlying deposit. Singapore has not legislated for PBM and treats the wrapper as a matter of contract between the issuer, the holder and the merchant. The programme ran live in pilots through 2024 and 2025 and has influenced the design of government disbursements, but no general PBM regime exists in either hub.

Notes

MAS, Purpose Bound Money (PBM) Technical Whitepaper, 21 June 2023 (published with industry participants including Amazon, Grab and the Singapore banks). Part K, Chapter VII. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Of Counsel, KGP Legal LLC

I am Of Counsel with KGP Legal LLC in Singapore, where I work with a global client base of successful entrepreneurs and their families, independent asset managers, commodity trading houses and other commercial clients. I am a German and Swiss attorney-at-law, also admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales and in Hong Kong. I divide my time between Zug in Switzerland, Singapore and Hong Kong. Since 2017 I have advised international clients on more than 700 crypto and digital asset projects. I also have extensive experience in cross-border litigation and arbitration in Singapore, Hong Kong and other markets in South-East Asia and Greater China.

I operate across the key financial centres in South-East Asia, the Middle East and Switzerland, with a particular focus on asset protection, international tax and estate planning, as well as trusts, company administration and other fiduciary services. My philosophy is to serve as a trusted advisor working closely with my clients and to help them achieve their commercial objectives.

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