Malaysia, Thailand central banks join Singapore's BLOOM as Ripple, Visa sign on

The central banks of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand will work together on common approaches for moving digital money such as stablecoins and tokenised deposits across borders. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said on Oct. 23 that Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) have joined BLOOM, its digital money settlement initiative, as policymaker members. Nine more organisations, including Ripple, Visa and Mastercard, were added as participants the same day.

Malaysia and Thailand come in as policymaker members

BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. It is a public-private initiative that brings together policymakers, financial institutions, payment networks and technology providers, and it looks at how tokenised bank deposits and regulated stablecoins can be used for settlement.

According to MAS, the three central banks will partner industry players in their jurisdictions to develop common approaches for how different forms of digital money can be accepted, exchanged and settled across institutions, networks and jurisdictions. The work will also cover how international standards and each jurisdiction's supervisory expectations apply to such transactions, while allowing for differences in local requirements.

"A future where frictionless cross-border payments can be made using multiple digital monies is now closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy."

Aznan bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia

Daranee Saeju, deputy governor of the Bank of Thailand, said BLOOM would "help inform forward-looking regulatory approaches for tokenised money, particularly in cross-border payments and wholesale settlement," adding that the central bank's oversight would remain "prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks."

Ripple, Visa, Mastercard among nine new participants

The newly added participants are Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group. The 16 existing participants are Anchorage Digital, Ant International, Circle, Coinbase, DBS, J.P. Morgan, Kasikornbank, OCBC, Partior, Schroders, Standard Chartered, StraitsX, Stripe, Temasek, UOB and Xweave. Circle, issuer of the USDC dollar stablecoin, and Coinbase have been involved since the start.

MAS said the World Bank Group, as a multilateral development bank, would bring its experience in payment systems modernisation and financial inclusion, along with the perspectives of developing economies. Ripple first announced its BLOOM participation on March 25, saying it would pilot trade settlement with supply chain finance firm Unloq using RLUSD, its dollar stablecoin. In that model, smart contracts release payment automatically once shipment verification is complete, and the system runs on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

Three tracks, from settlement to sanctions screening

Participants will focus on three areas.

• Acceptance and settlement across jurisdictions: which forms of digital money institutions accept, how counterparties contract with one another, and how transactions are ultimately settled
• Interoperability across digital money arrangements: the technical and operational approaches that let networks and infrastructures connect across borders
• Programmable controls: building safeguards such as identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction controls into code

MAS said aligning implementation frameworks and commercial and operating arrangements would reduce the need for financial institutions to set up separate arrangements with each counterparty or market, lowering costs and improving time to market. The announcement did not give a launch date for an actual settlement service among the three countries or a timeline for the common approaches.

Started a year ago as a Singapore-only project

MAS first unveiled BLOOM on Oct. 16, 2025. It builds on Project Orchid, which has tested use cases for a digital Singapore dollar since 2021. At launch, Circle, DBS, OCBC, Partior, Stripe and UOB worked on distribution and clearing of settlement assets, Ant International and StraitsX on programmable compliance, and Coinbase and DBS on agentic payments. With two neighbouring central banks now on board a year later, BLOOM has grown from a Singapore testbed into a three-country Southeast Asian initiative.

In South Korea, XRP traded at 1,756 won, USDC at 1,343 won and Tether (USDT) at 1,341 won on Upbit's Korean won market as of 12:30 p.m. KST on Oct. 25. XRP was up 0.7% from the previous day.