At a glance
- Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) have joined BLOOM, the cross-border digital money initiative run by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), as policymaker members, MAS said on Friday.
- Nine new participants have joined: Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group, according to MAS.
BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. MAS describes it as a public-private group of regulators, banks, payment networks and technology firms working on digital money for cross-border use, including tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins.
The new names join 16 existing participants, MAS said, among them Circle, Coinbase, DBS, J.P. Morgan, Kasikornbank, Standard Chartered, Stripe and UOB.
“The future of finance will involve multiple forms of digital money operating across different institutions and markets,” said Leong Sing Chiong, MAS deputy managing director for markets and development.
Three areas of work
Participants will focus on three things, according to MAS.
The first is acceptance and settlement: how institutions accept different forms of digital money in cross-border deals, contract with each other, and settle across markets.
The second is interoperability between digital money networks and systems.
The third is programmable controls, such as identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction controls built into payments.
MAS said shared frameworks should reduce the need for each institution to set up separate arrangements with every counterparty or market, cutting cost and time to market.
What the central banks said
BNM deputy governor Aznan bin Abdul Aziz said frictionless cross-border payments using several digital monies are “now closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy”.
Dr Daranee Saeju, BOT deputy governor, said BLOOM would “help inform forward-looking regulatory approaches for tokenised money, particularly in cross-border payments and wholesale settlement”.
The World Bank Group joins as a multilateral development bank and will bring the needs of developing economies, MAS said.
Context
MAS announced BLOOM in October 2025. On 9 Oct, CryptoWatchDesk reported that MAS’s Chia Der Jiun set out the regulator’s digital-money plans, with BLOOM handling settlement work.
The expansion lands on the same day HSBC launched its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin for retail users.
What’s next
MAS did not give a timetable for BLOOM’s frameworks or any live cross-border transactions. For the basics of the tokens involved, see what a stablecoin is.
This article is for information only and is not investment advice.