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Malaysia, Thailand Join Singapore BLOOM Cross-Border Stablecoin Initiative
Central Banks Add Policymaker Roles as Digital Money Settlement Tests Expand
TL;DR
- Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joined Singapore’s BLOOM initiative as policymaker members.
- BLOOM is testing cross-border settlement using regulated stablecoins, tokenized deposits and interoperable digital-money networks.
- Participants include Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, the World Bank Group and major financial and technology companies.
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Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joined Singapore’s BLOOM initiative as policymaker members on October 23, 2026, expanding regional work on cross-border payments involving stablecoins and tokenized deposits. The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, said the initiative is examining how different forms of digital money can operate across institutions, markets and payment networks.
BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. The public-private initiative is designed to help financial institutions use stablecoins and tokenized deposits for cross-border payments. MAS said BLOOM aims to cut costs and help institutions bring services to market faster by reducing the need to establish separate arrangements with each counterparty or market.
MAS launched BLOOM in October 2025, building on Project Orchid, which began in 2021 to examine uses for a digital Singapore dollar. BLOOM’s work extends beyond cross-border settlement to corporate cash management, trade finance and payments executed by AI agents within predefined limits. Singapore has also separately tested a wholesale central bank digital currency.
Participants include Airwallex, Circle, Coinbase, JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ripple, Standard Chartered, Stripe, Visa and the World Bank Group. The expanded policymaker group brings Malaysia and Thailand directly into work examining how regulated digital money can move across borders and different financial systems.
BLOOM Tests Interoperability, Compliance and Cross-Border Settlement
MAS said the work will examine how banks handle different forms of digital money in cross-border transactions and how separate networks can interoperate. The initiative will also test safeguards including identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction controls.
“The future of finance will involve multiple forms of digital money operating across different institutions and markets,” MAS Deputy Managing Director Leong Sing Chiong said.
Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor Aznan bin Abdul Aziz said cross-border payments using multiple forms of digital money were becoming a more tangible prospect. Bank of Thailand Deputy Governor Daranee Saeju said BLOOM would help the central bank examine regulatory approaches to tokenized money, particularly for cross-border payments and wholesale settlement.
Malaysia had already begun work on related digital-money use cases. Bank Negara Malaysia announced in February that three initiatives would test ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits for domestic and cross-border wholesale payments in 2026.
Ripple separately announced its participation in BLOOM in March. The company said it would test trade payments using RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. Its trial with supply chain fintech company Unloq uses the SC+ platform to automate payment releases when predefined conditions are met.
This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.
