The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) finally shortlisted 15 companies that will assist in developing retail CBDC. These firms will participate in the Global CBDC challenge and help build the in-house retail central bank digital currency. MAS announcement indicates that the participants include four companies from the United States and six from Singapore. There’s also one firm each from Barbados, France, Switzerland, Australia, and Germany. Of all the participants, only three winners will emerge and work to build Singapore’s retail CBDC. On June 28, there was an announcement of the cash prizes for the digital currency ideas by the Singaporean central bank. This resulted in a challenge that has more than 300 fintech firms from over 50 countries in participation. Related Reading | Ethereum Software Client Geth Issues Hotfix To Tighten Security Some of the global finalists are Criteo (France), Bitt (Barbados), and Soramitsu (Switzerland). Also, there are ANZ Banking Group Limited (Australia) and Giesecke+Devrient advance52 GmbH (Germany). The shortlisted United States-based firms include Consensys, cLabs Inc., IBM, and Extolabs LLC. The local Singaporean shortlisted consortiums are IOG Singapore Pte Ltd, Citibank N.A., Standard Chartered Bank, and IDEMIA. Others are HSBC Bank Limited and HSBC Holdings Plc, and Xfers Pte Ltd Finalists Will Be Rewarded For Developing CBDC Retail A cash prize of 50,000 Singapore dolla...