StraitsX, Southeast Asia’s digital assets platform developed by Singapore-based FinTech firm Xfers, announced on Monday that it has surpassed the S$2 billion ($1.48 billion) mark in digital assets-related transactions on its payment platform in 2021 alone.

“The growth in transactions shows that investors are increasingly exploring digital assets as an alternative form of investment that offers liquidity and returns. Meanwhile, central banks around the world are examining the potential benefits of digital and decentralized financial systems. Recently, we have been shortlisted in the MAS Global CBDC Challenge together with our partner SEBA Bank to explore innovative retail CBDC solutions to enhance payment efficiencies, and we intend to intensify our efforts working hand-in-hand with both regulators and digital assets market participants to enable such transformation,” Aymeric Salley, Head of StraitsX, said in a statement.

Adding on to this announcement is the unveiling of StraitsX’s new platform and identity. The new StraitsX platform features a redesigned and streamlined user interface to enable faster and more efficient navigation.

The StraitsX platform enables individual users to transfer, mint, and redeem XSGD with a connected bank account, in addition to spending their XSGD with various digital asset platforms. Businesses can also leverage APIs to collect, disburse and reconcile funds from their end-users.

StraitsX said it currently supports over 10 digital asset platforms in Singapore through its API solution.

“With the increase of user adoption towards access to digital assets, we feel that we can better serve this market by separating StraitsX as a standalone brand dedicated to accelerating access to digital assets in Southeast Asia. This brand update aims to improve user experience and better communicate our mission to bring access to digital assets in Southeast Asia,” said Salley.

In October 2020, StraitsX launched Southeast Asia’s first stablecoin – the StraitsX Singapore Dollar (XSGD), a digital token available on the Ethereum and Zilliqa blockchain that is backed one-for-one by the Singapore dollar.

XSGD is supported on various digital asset platforms including decentralized finance applications such as Zilswap, Uniswap, and DFX finance. As of September 2021, XSGD crossed over S$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) in on-chain transaction value.

StraitsX is a payments infrastructure for the digital assets space in Southeast Asia developed by Singapore-based FinTech Xfers Pte. Ltd, a Major Payment Institution licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore for e-money issuance.

StraitsX offers personal and business accounts to deposit, hold and withdraw funds as well as to connect accounts to digital asset platforms. Business accounts can also access B2B API-enabled payments rails for digital asset platforms and issues the Singapore Dollar-backed stablecoin, XSGD.

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