Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are coordinating cross-border digital money settlement while keeping their own supervisory rules. On October 23, 2026, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand had joined its BLOOM initiative to develop payment arrangements involving regulated stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits.
Key takeaways
- Three Southeast Asian central banks now participate in BLOOM.
- The initiative targets settlement compatibility and lower cross-border transaction costs.
- Ripple, Mastercard, Visa and the World Bank Group joined the expanded participant group.
- Each central bank retains its own regulatory authority.
What BLOOM changes for cross-border settlement
BLOOM brings regulators, financial institutions and payment companies together to develop arrangements for accepting, exchanging and settling digital money across national borders. Its scope includes regulated stablecoins and tokenized deposits, rather than a single shared currency.
The name stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joined as policymaker members, putting the three central banks in the same initiative while preserving their respective supervisory requirements.
Efforts are focused on settlement and acceptance across borders, the ability of digital money networks to interoperate, and programmable compliance controls. Those controls cover identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction restrictions that institutions need when moving money internationally.
According to MAS, shared implementation frameworks may lessen the need for banks and payment firms to hammer out individual operating agreements with each counterparty. Through this initiative, contracts, settlement processes and technical links will be reviewed in order to cut cross-border transaction costs for financial institutions.
Cooperation without shared crypto regulations across Asia
The BLOOM expansion concerns implementation frameworks and commercial arrangements, not a shared stablecoin license or an operational three-country settlement network. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand retain responsibility for their own regulatory decisions.
Leong Sing Chiong, Deputy Managing Director of MAS, stated that collaboration is essential given the growing use of varied forms of digital money in financial markets. Aznan bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, characterized seamless payments across different digital currencies as a prospect that is becoming more attainable.
Bank of Thailand Deputy Governor Daranee Saeju said BLOOM would help inform Thailand’s approach to tokenized money, particularly for wholesale settlement and international payments. The initiative therefore brings work on crypto regulations in Asia into a common forum without replacing national supervision.
Payment companies and banks broaden participation
Ripple, Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group joined BLOOM’s expanded participant list. Existing members included Circle, Coinbase, J.P. Morgan, DBS, Anchorage Digital and Standard Chartered.
The World Bank Group is participating as a multilateral development institution, contributing experience in payment-system modernization and financial inclusion, including the requirements of developing economies.
The broader membership puts stablecoin issuers, banks and payment networks alongside the three central banks as they develop settlement arrangements. Participation does not itself constitute regional authorization for a particular token: the expansion did not establish approval for Ripple’s RLUSD or Circle’s USDC across the participating jurisdictions.
The participating institutions’ work covers implementation frameworks and commercial arrangements, while each of the three central banks retains responsibility for its jurisdiction’s regulatory decisions.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.