Five systemically important banks founded Global Layer One Organisation for tokenized markets
Five systemically important banks founded Global Layer One Organisation on November 4, 2026 to develop shared frameworks for tokenized financial markets.
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HSBC, Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, MUFG, Societe Generale FORGE and Standard Chartered founded the Global Layer One Organisation on November 4, 2026, according to the organisation’s website.
The non-profit will develop common frameworks for tokenized financial markets and promote their adoption, Ledger Insights reported. The organisation is inviting others to join, including market infrastructures, fintechs and policymakers.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore launched GL1 under Project Guardian about three years before November 4, 2026. The new organisation moves the initiative from the regulator to the industry.
According to GL1’s website, the organisation aims to develop open, interoperable, shared ledger infrastructures for hosting and executing transactions involving tokenized assets. It wants to enable applications such as payments, capital raising and secondary trading to be deployed on those platforms. It also seeks to encourage internationally accepted common principles, policies and standards so assets and applications work across networks and jurisdictions.
Its existing work includes a Market Infrastructure Toolkit, now at version 2.0, which the website describes as a framework for financial institutions and market infrastructure operators to validate their services against internationally recognized principles and standards across multiple jurisdictions. The site says network operators attest to the toolkit.
GL1 also published a programmable compliance white paper on June 22, 2026. The paper examines how compliance checks can be built into financial infrastructure through a composable reference architecture. The website describes programmable on-chain compliance checks as one of the templates GL1 provides to support a market of compatible service providers.
The organisation’s work is organized around principles alignment on governance, risk management controls and settlement arrangements for cross-border transactions. It also includes specifications covering business, governance, risk, legal and technology requirements, as well as asset lifecycle.
The GL1 Forum brings participating industry members and policymakers together quarterly to discuss updates to existing principles, standards or templates and industry application cases. GL1 also holds public-private sector dialogues involving a broader set of financial institutions and policymakers.
The website says the lack of suitable financial networks and technical infrastructures for institutions to execute digital asset transactions is limiting their ability to deploy tokenized assets at commercial scale.