The Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined BLOOM, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) initiative, as regulatory members. The stated aim is to reduce the need for separate arrangements with each counterparty or market, lowering implementation costs and shortening time to market. The announcement, however, sets no launch date for a joint cross-border service.
🔑 Key takeaways
- October 23, 2026: Malaysia and Thailand join Singapore as regulatory members.
- Four workstreams: cross-border acceptance and settlement, interoperability, programmable controls and agentic payments.
- Visa and Nium: first stablecoin settlement pilot, targeting a seven-day cycle.
- No timetable: the MAS has not set a cross-border launch date.
A regional framework that keeps expanding
On October 23, 2026, the MAS announced that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand had entered BLOOM. The two central banks join Singapore as regulatory members. According to the MAS statement, the three authorities will work with public and private participants in their jurisdictions on the acceptance, exchange and settlement of different forms of digital money across institutions and networks. BLOOM was first launched by the MAS on October 16, 2025, and its scope has widened since.
BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. It is a public-private collaboration aimed at advancing next-generation settlement infrastructure for domestic and cross-border payments as well as financial transactions. It enables the use of settlement assets such as tokenised commercial bank money and stablecoins that meet regulatory expectations. Coverage extends to G10 and Asian currencies. The high-volume use cases under consideration include corporate cash management, trade finance and agentic payments.
BLOOM grows directly out of Project Orchid, a programme launched in 2021 to explore use cases for a digital Singapore dollar and the infrastructure needed to run it. More than ten trials were documented in industry reports, and participating institutions turned the results into commercial offerings. The published membership list is shown below.
| Category | Named members |
|---|---|
| Regulatory members | Bank Negara Malaysia, Bank of Thailand, MAS |
| Banks | DBS, J.P. Morgan, Kasikornbank, Maybank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UOB |
| Payment and settlement networks | Mastercard, Visa, Airwallex, Nium, Stripe, Partior |
| Crypto and stablecoin players | Anchorage Digital, Circle, Coinbase, Ripple, StraitsX |
| Other members | Ant International, Monee, Schroders, ShopeePay, Temasek, Xweave |
| Multilateral institutions | World Bank Group |
Four workstreams
The framework announced by the MAS is built around four complementary workstreams. Together they go well beyond digital currency and touch on how networks, infrastructure and regulatory controls interact.
- Cross-border acceptance and settlement: studying how institutions accept different forms of digital money in cross-border transactions, contract with one another, and settle those transactions across borders.
- Interoperability: making digital money arrangements work across networks, infrastructures and borders.
- Programmable controls: embedding identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction controls directly into payments.
- Agentic payments: testing AI agents that execute transactions within predefined limits and safeguards, reducing manual payment handling and optimising costs by timing transfers when conditions are most favourable.
Kenneth Gay, managing director of the MAS fintech arm, summed up the legacy of Project Orchid and the purpose of BLOOM.
“Project Orchid established the technical competencies necessary to support the digital Singapore dollar and explored potential use cases for it. BLOOM takes this further, enhancing the range of settlement asset options for participants.”
Kenneth Gay, Managing Director, Fintech, Monetary Authority of Singapore
First pilots: Visa, Nium and Ripple
On August 25, 2026, Visa announced it had joined BLOOM and selected Nium, a Singapore-based cross-border payments company, as its first partner for a stablecoin settlement pilot. The test will determine whether settlement, still limited to business days for most institutions, can run seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays. Visa argues that a continuous settlement cycle could shorten delays, reduce frictions and give participating institutions faster access to their funds. Regular stablecoins backed by major currencies, including the US dollar and the euro, are the target.
“The future of payments will be shaped by how different forms of money and payment networks work together for different use cases. Through BLOOM and our pilot with Nium in Singapore, we are exploring how stablecoins can complement existing payment infrastructure.”
Adeline Kim, Group Country Manager for Regional Southeast Asia, Visa
Amaresh Mohan, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Nium, presents the pilot as a step in the existing relationship between the two companies. He stresses the need to build infrastructure enabling seamless interoperability between traditional and stablecoin-based rails.
A trade finance test
A separate project targets international trade finance. Ripple and Unloq have presented a setup in which RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin, moves on the XRP Ledger alongside Unloq’s SC+ platform. Payments are released once commercial conditions, such as shipment verification, are met. The project illustrates the programmable functions BLOOM wants to explore.
Maybank is among the institutional members, and a FinTech Futures article refers to its participation in tokenised settlement trials. The content of that article was not available in the source material used for this analysis, so the exact nature of its role is not detailed here.
Points of caution
Several elements call for caution. First, the October 23, 2026 announcement concerns the development of frameworks and operating modalities, not a commercial service. The three central banks still need to examine how international standards and local supervisory requirements apply, taking account of differences between jurisdictions.
Daranee Saeju, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand in charge of payment system stability and financial services supervision, said Thailand’s participation aims to inform the regulation of tokenised money, particularly for cross-border payments and high-value settlement.
“We will explore innovations while ensuring oversight remains prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks.”
Daranee Saeju, Deputy Governor, Bank of Thailand
The sources also differ on timing for Visa. A RegTech article noted that the company had announced its participation without yet appearing in the MAS member list. The BLOOM page consulted for this analysis now includes it. Finally, the sources report no market reaction, price, volume or valuation metric linked to this membership.
Readers should also note that the Visa-Nium pilot is at an early stage, and no quantified operational results have been published yet.
Outlook and scenarios
BLOOM marks a step toward a settlement architecture compatible with tokenised assets and regulated stablecoins. In the central scenario, pilots multiply among banks, networks and fintechs without a fixed public timetable, while regulators gradually clarify the conditions of use. In a bullish scenario, seven-day settlement trials such as the Visa and Nium pilot demonstrate measurable operational gains and drive rapid adoption by corporate treasurers. In a bearish scenario, supervisory divergences between jurisdictions and compliance requirements slow projects and limit real interoperability.
For market observers, the relevant indicator is not the announcement of new members but the publication of first live flows, launch dates and finalised regulatory frameworks.
Sources
- The Defiant: Malaysia and Thailand Join Singapore’s BLOOM Digital-Money Initiative
- MAS: BLOOM official page
- Banking Exchange: Singapore regulator launches BLOOM
- finews.asia: Visa joins Singapore stablecoin initiative
- FinTech Futures: Maybank joins MAS BLOOM project
- RegTech: Visa joins MAS BLOOM initiative
Cet article est publié à titre informatif et éducatif. Il ne constitue en aucun cas un conseil en investissement. Faites vos propres recherches (DYOR) avant toute décision.
