Singapore’s BLOOM initiative now has three central banks on board: the Monetary Authority of Singapore said on October 23 that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined as policymaker members, to work with industry on common ways to accept, exchange and settle digital money across borders. New industry participants include Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group, joining existing members such as Ant International, Circle, DBS, J.P. Morgan, OCBC and Stripe.
Why it matters: Tokenised deposits and regulated stablecoins are only useful for cross-border payments if they work across jurisdictions, so adding two neighbouring central banks turns a Singapore project into a regional one. The focus on interoperability and programmable controls such as identity checks and sanctions screening could shape how ASEAN supervisors approach digital money settlement.
Source: Monetary Authority of Singapore media release, October 23, 2026
Related: Sea plans separate listing for fintech arm Monee · Shinhan Card and SBI to test yen stablecoin payments between Japan and Korea
Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
