Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are expanding regional cooperation on cross-border digital money, bringing three central banks into a shared public-private initiative focused on settlement infrastructure. The Monetary Authority of Singapore said on October 23 that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand had joined BLOOM as policymaker members. BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. The initiative is designed to help regulated forms of digital money move across institutions, networks and jurisdictions with more consistent commercial, operational and supervisory arrangements.

What the three central banks agreed to explore

MAS said the three authorities will work with industry participants in their respective markets to develop common approaches for accepting, exchanging and settling different forms of digital money. The work covers tokenised commercial-bank money and stablecoins that meet regulatory expectations. Its focus is institutional infrastructure rather than a new consumer token. The announcement does not identify a public launch date, a named settlement asset or a live payment corridor. It instead establishes a framework for testing how multiple forms of digital money can operate across existing financial systems.

Related reporting: HSBC Launches RedCoin Stablecoin Across PayMe

Interoperability and controls are central

BLOOM's participants will concentrate on three areas. The first is acceptance and settlement across jurisdictions, including how counterparties contract with one another and complete settlement in different markets. The second is interoperability between digital-money arrangements operating on separate networks. The third is programmable controls, such as identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction limits. These are practical constraints for regulated cross-border payments: technical connectivity alone does not resolve legal, compliance, liquidity or counterparty obligations.

Industry participation broadens

The initiative also added Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group. They join an existing group that includes Anchorage Digital, Circle, Coinbase, DBS, J.P. Morgan, OCBC, Standard Chartered, Stripe and other financial and technology firms. Participants are examining applications in payments, corporate treasury management and trade finance. MAS says aligning implementation frameworks could reduce the need for institutions to negotiate separate arrangements with every counterparty or market, potentially lowering costs and shortening deployment timelines. Those benefits remain objectives rather than measured outcomes.

Malaysia brings its own stablecoin trials

Bank Negara Malaysia had already announced three controlled initiatives in February to test ringgit stablecoins and tokenised deposits during 2026. Those projects cover domestic and cross-border wholesale payments, including settlement of tokenised assets. BNM said the trials would inform policy and financial-stability assessments and that it aimed to provide greater clarity on ringgit stablecoins and tokenised deposits by the end of the year. Joining BLOOM gives that domestic experimentation a regional coordination channel, but it does not mean the ringgit projects have received general commercial approval.

Why the expansion matters

Cross-border digital-money projects often work within one institution or pilot environment but face friction when they encounter different networks, rules and settlement processes. Adding Malaysia and Thailand gives BLOOM a broader policy base in Southeast Asia and creates a venue for regulators and firms to compare supervisory expectations before products scale. The initiative could help regulated stablecoins and tokenised deposits become more usable for wholesale settlement, yet major questions remain around legal finality, redemption, foreign-exchange liquidity, data governance and operational resilience. The October 23 announcement marks a coordinated development programme, not proof that cross-border stablecoin settlement is already available at commercial scale.

Sources

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