A Singapore-based consortium has formed Project Pigeon, an APAC working group intended to develop governance and risk controls for financial institutions using permissionless blockchains.
What happened
The group is convened by the Responsible Fintech Institute, Digital Asset Association, Elliptic and Baker McKenzie. It follows an April 2026 Monetary Authority of Singapore consultation and plans work on governance, technology, settlement-finality and financial-crime risks. PR Newswire
Why it matters
The material change is a structured regional process for translating broad regulatory concerns into controls that banks can test. The initiative is still developing guidance; it has not secured regulatory endorsement or proven that institutions can treat all public-chain exposure the same way. Participation alone does not make a blockchain product compliant or safe.
For Southeast Asia’s digital-finance market, clearer control frameworks can help institutions distinguish experiments from deployable services while preserving accountability for sanctions, settlement and technology failures. The working group will need to show how its controls operate across different legal systems and institutional risk tolerances.
What would make the work useful
The consortium targets an industry guide in the first quarter of 2027. Membership, regulator participation and the detail of the published control tests will determine its practical value. Banks and technology providers will need implementable controls, not only principles, before the work changes deployment decisions.
Source note
Reported facts are attributed to Project Pigeon consortium release distributed by PR Newswire. SEA Connect adds regional business context and separates announced plans from completed outcomes.