Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) have joined Singapore's BLOOM initiative as policymaker members, according to an announcement by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Friday, Oct. 23. The three authorities said they will partner with the industry to advance cross-border settlement in digital money. The additions place central banks from three Southeast Asian jurisdictions directly into the effort — a notable point for an initiative focused on cross-border settlement, which by definition involves the payment and regulatory systems of more than one country.

BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is a public-private initiative that intends to help financial institutions use stablecoins and tokenized deposits for cross-border payments. Stablecoins are digital tokens typically pegged to fiat currencies, while tokenized deposits represent commercial bank deposits on blockchain-based systems.

According to MAS, the initiative aims to cut costs and help institutions bring services to market faster by reducing the need to set up arrangements with each individual counterparty or market. That friction point is a familiar one in cross-border payments, where institutions have traditionally had to maintain separate relationships and integrations for each market they serve.

MAS, Singapore's central bank and financial regulator, launched BLOOM in October 2025, building on Project Orchid, a program begun in 2021 to explore potential uses for a digital Singapore dollar. BLOOM's work also covers corporate cash management, trade finance, and payments executed by AI agents within predefined limits.

Participants in the initiative include Airwallex, Mastercard, Ripple, Visa and the World Bank Group — a mix spanning payment fintechs, card networks, blockchain firms, and multilateral institutions. Ripple has separately joined a Singapore sandbox to test its RLUSD stablecoin in trade finance.

In a parallel move, BNM, Malaysia's central bank, announced in February that three initiatives would test ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits for domestic and cross-border wholesale payments in 2026. Wholesale payments refer to transactions between financial institutions, as distinct from consumer retail payments. With BNM's pilots scheduled for 2026 and policymaker membership now spanning three central banks, the initiative has concrete near-term markers for those tracking how regional digital-money settlement takes shape.