The Bank of England, Monetary Authority of Singapore and Bank of Thailand have completed a trial that coordinated foreign-exchange settlement across three central-bank test environments. Project Meridian FX APAC connected conventional real-time gross settlement systems with a distributed-ledger-based environment through a shared synchronization layer. The November 13 results show that linked currency transfers can be made to occur together across systems with different technology and operating models, without requiring every participant to move onto one platform.

Payment-versus-payment reduces principal risk

The project tested payment-versus-payment, or PvP, settlement. Under this arrangement, the transfer of one currency completes only if the corresponding transfer in the other currency also completes. That condition is designed to reduce the risk that one party delivers the currency it sold but does not receive the currency it bought. The central banks said more than $1.4 trillion, representing 10% of average daily foreign-exchange settlement in April 2025, remained fully exposed to settlement risk according to the BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey.

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A coordination layer linked unlike systems

Partior, the project's delivery partner, developed and tested the Synchronisation Operator prototype. The operator acts as a coordination layer rather than replacing each settlement system. It directs linked transfers to complete together or not at all. The trial covered a wider mix of currencies, time zones, infrastructure and technology than the earlier Project Meridian FX work, which involved the BIS Innovation Hub London and several European central banks. Independent reporting by CoinDesk said the design allowed conventional and blockchain-based systems to participate without adopting identical infrastructure.

Netting lowered the amount of liquidity required

Project Meridian FX APAC also tested multilateral net settlement. Instead of settling every obligation separately at its full value, participants can offset payments they owe against payments due to them and settle the smaller net amount. The central banks said the experiment demonstrated that this process could improve how banks use liquidity while preserving coordinated settlement. The Reserve Bank of Australia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas participated as observers, contributing perspectives to the project's legal, regulatory and oversight analysis.

The trial does not create a live payment service

The findings are experimental and do not launch a commercial foreign-exchange network, central-bank digital currency or stablecoin. No participating bank, transaction volume or production currency corridor was announced. The three institutions published executive, technical and policy reports describing functional requirements and integration trade-offs. They said future work could add jurisdictions, industry participants, currencies and transaction scenarios, while further defining the legal arrangements, governance and oversight needed for real-world use.

A 2028 UK interface provides the next reference point

The Bank of England plans to introduce a live synchronization interface in 2028, giving the experiment a potential route toward production use in the United Kingdom. That plan does not automatically extend the APAC prototype into a live three-country service. Commercial deployment would still require operational agreements and regulatory decisions across participating jurisdictions. For participating banks, any eventual benefit would depend on which currencies and institutions join, how operating hours are coordinated, and whether the legal framework gives linked transfers finality in every market. The immediate result is narrower but significant: three central banks demonstrated that synchronized settlement and netting can operate across unlike wholesale systems, including both RTGS and distributed-ledger technology, while keeping transfers anchored in central-bank money.

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