The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on October 23 that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined BLOOM as policymaker members, with nine new industry participants — including Ripple and Visa — coming on board alongside 16 existing members. According to the MAS announcement, the expansion gives the initiative policymaker participation across three countries and places stablecoin rivals, global banks and payment competitors in the same working group for cross-border digital money settlement.

Rivals at one table

The nine new participants join an existing roster of 16 members that already included stablecoin issuers, crypto firms, global banks and payment companies.

Joining now:

• Crypto and payments: Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, Airwallex, Nium
• Wallets: ShopeePay, Monee
• Bank: Maybank
• Multilateral: World Bank Group

Already in the group:

• Stablecoins and crypto: Circle, StraitsX, Coinbase, Anchorage Digital
• Banks: DBS, J.P. Morgan, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, Kasikornbank
• Payments: Ant International, Stripe, Partior
• Investors and others: Schroders, Temasek, Xweave

The lineup puts competitors in the same room. Ripple, which issues the RLUSD stablecoin, will now work alongside Circle, the issuer of USDC, and Visa joins at the same time as Mastercard. Each new policymaker country also has a bank in the group: Maybank joins from Malaysia, while Thailand's Kasikornbank was already a member. MAS said the World Bank Group adds experience in payment-system modernisation and the needs of developing economies. The mix also maps onto the initiative's mandate from both sides — banks and stablecoin issuers that can create the digital money, and the wallets and payment networks that would handle spending or accepting it.

A rulebook, not a network

BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is a public-private initiative to agree how different forms of digital money — including tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins — are accepted, exchanged and settled across institutions and borders. The difference between those two forms is central to the problem: a tokenized deposit is a direct claim on the bank that issues it, while a regulated stablecoin is a liability of its own issuer under a dedicated regime, so whether a payment completes abroad depends on how each form is recognized in the destination jurisdiction. The initiative is organized around three workstreams covering acceptance, interoperability and programmable controls. It applies international standards alongside each country's own supervisory expectations, meaning local rules can still differ.

According to MAS, common implementation frameworks and aligned commercial and operating arrangements will reduce the need for institutions to strike separate agreements with every counterparty or market, cutting implementation costs and time to market. The authority did not put a figure on either. With Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand now at the table as policymaker members alongside MAS, the supervisory expectations of all three countries are represented directly in the work that produces those shared frameworks.

Malaysia confident, Thailand careful

"Closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy," said Aznan bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia, describing frictionless cross-border payments using multiple forms of digital money.

"Prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks," said Daranee Saeju, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Thailand. Saeju said BLOOM would help inform the central bank's regulatory approach to tokenized money, particularly for cross-border payments and wholesale settlement, and allow it to carefully explore new technology while ensuring its supervision keeps pace with emerging risks.

What a cross-border token payment already looks like

One existing member has already tested the idea between two banks. DBS said it completed a dollar payment with Citi's New York office on Saturday, September 5, using tokenized deposits on Swift's digital ledger. Per DBS's announcement, the transfer took minutes, against an industry norm of up to two business days.

That DBS–Citi tokenized-dollar payment rested on terms the two banks agreed with each other — the kind of one-off bilateral arrangement BLOOM is meant to make less necessary.

What's missing, and what to

The announcement sets no launch date, payment corridors, fees or volumes, and assigns no specific roles to Ripple, Visa or Mastercard. It does not mention XRP or Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin.

The first concrete signs of progress will be the publication of BLOOM's implementation frameworks and a cross-border transaction between members in the three countries — for example, a Malaysian or Thai bank accepting another member's tokenized deposit or regulated stablecoin.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

Source: Coindoo