Malaysia and Thailand Join Singapore Initiative to Coordinate Cross-Border Digital Money Settlement
Key Facts
The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced on October 23, 2026, that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand had joined the BLOOM initiative as policymaker members. The two banks’ entry gives the initiative formal participation by three Asian monetary authorities in coordinating the cross-border use of digital money. BLOOM brings together public and private entities, including policymakers, financial institutions, payment networks and technology providers. It aims to develop the use of digital money in financial activities that cross borders and markets. The Singapore authority says the work will cover different forms of digital money, including tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand will work with industry participants in their jurisdictions to develop common approaches to using digital money across borders. These efforts include accepting, exchanging and settling different types of money between institutions and networks. This places coordination on transaction and settlement arrangements, without limiting the initiative to a single digital asset or two specific types of money. The announcement links regulatory and operational work with the ability to move digital money across more than one market. The Bank of Thailand’s deputy governor said his country’s participation would help "explore forward-looking regulatory approaches for tokenized money," particularly in cross-border payments and wholesale settlement.
The announcement identified three areas of work. The first is the acceptance and settlement of digital money across jurisdictions. The second concerns interoperability between digital money arrangements, enabling transactions between different systems or networks. The third focuses on programmable controls, including identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction controls. These priorities place regulatory considerations within the design of operational arrangements, alongside the transfer and settlement of money. The initiative thus combines efforts to connect systems with the inclusion of compliance controls in transaction flows.
The list of new participants includes companies and institutions operating in payments and financial technology: Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay and Visa, along with the World Bank Group. Their entry adds private-sector representation to the central banks’ participation in the initiative. The Monetary Authority of Singapore believes implementation frameworks and alignment of commercial and operational arrangements could reduce institutions’ need for separate agreements with each counterparty or market. It said this approach could lower implementation costs and improve the speed of market access. The practical impact will depend on how those frameworks and working arrangements among participants are designed.
BLOOM’s background lies in Project Orchid, which explored uses for the digital Singapore dollar and the infrastructure required for it. The Monetary Authority says Orchid’s trials produced reports and market-ready commercial propositions, forming the basis for the current initiative. BLOOM’s objectives include the use of G10 and Asian currencies, as well as cross-border payments and settlements. They also include wholesale use cases such as corporate treasury management, trade finance and agent payments. In a speech on October 9, 2026, the authority’s managing director said tokenized deposits could suit banking use cases in cash management and payments, while stablecoins could see broader use on crypto platforms and in fintech payments.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore’s managing director linked stablecoin reliability to the transparency and adequacy of reserves, warning that maintaining their value at parity is not automatically guaranteed. He said confidence in their ability to maintain that level "must be achieved primarily through transparency and the adequacy of reserve assets." He noted that their suitability could be limited for settling large wholesale transactions. This caution reflects a distinction between the uses of digital money rather than treating the instruments as interchangeable in all cases. In this context, BLOOM focuses on coordinating acceptance, settlement and controls, while encompassing more than one form of digital money.
The announcement comes as regional payment links continue to develop. Bank Negara reported in July 2024 that cross-border QR-code commercial payment transactions between Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore exceeded 1.3 million in the second half of 2024, more than doubling the 2023 volume. These figures concern QR-code payment links, while BLOOM aims to coordinate the use and settlement of digital money between institutions and networks. Separately from the initiative, data released by the Malaysian Department of Statistics on October 19 showed that annual inflation was 1.8% in September 2026, compared with 1.9% in August. The department attributed the decline to slower inflation in the housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels group, at 1.4% from 2.1%. By contrast, inflation in the transport group rose to 2.5% from 2.0%, while inflation in the operation of personal transport equipment climbed to 2.7% from 1.8%.