Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined BLOOM, the Monetary Authority of Singapore's initiative for settling cross-border payments in tokenized bank deposits and regulated stablecoins, MAS said on Oct. 23. Nine companies joined at the same time, among them Visa, Mastercard, Ripple, Maybank and the World Bank Group.

The move brings two of Singapore's Southeast Asian neighbors into a project that until now was run by one regulator. For banks, payment firms and corporate treasurers in the region, it raises the odds that a Singapore dollar deposit token or a regulated stablecoin could one day settle a payment into Malaysia or Thailand without a separate bilateral arrangement for each corridor. It also lands as MAS works through industry feedback on the draft law that will decide which stablecoins can be sold in Singapore as regulated.

What BLOOM does and who is in it

MAS launched BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, in October 2025, according to Fintech News Singapore. The three central banks, now formally policymaker members, will work with industry on common approaches to accepting, exchanging and settling digital money across borders.

The work runs in three strands: acceptance and settlement across jurisdictions, interoperability between different digital money systems, and programmable controls such as identity verification and sanctions screening. MAS said shared implementation frameworks would cut the need for each institution to strike separate deals with every counterparty or market, lowering costs and shortening the time it takes to launch services.

The newest industry members are Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group. MAS said participants are building applications in payments, treasury and trade finance, while the World Bank Group will contribute its experience with payment system upgrades, cross-border payments and financial inclusion.

They join an existing roster that, according to Ledger Insights, includes Singapore's three local lenders, DBS, OCBC and UOB, along with JPMorgan and Standard Chartered, stablecoin issuers Circle, Anchorage Digital and StraitsX, payment firms such as Stripe, and the interbank settlement network Partior. The trade publication noted that every handoff between two forms of money today rests on a bilateral agreement covering legal terms, technical links and compliance, which is hard to scale.

Leong Sing Chiong, MAS deputy managing director for markets and development, said cooperation between policymakers and industry was needed to resolve practical problems around acceptance, settlement and interoperability. Bank Negara Malaysia Deputy Governor Aznan bin Abdul Aziz said frictionless cross-border payments using several digital monies were "closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy."

BLOOM builds on Project Orchid, an earlier MAS program that explored a digital Singapore dollar and the infrastructure behind it.

Singapore's stablecoin law takes shape

The expansion sits alongside a separate rulemaking track. On Sept. 1, MAS issued a consultation paper on amendments to the Payment Services Act that would put its single-currency stablecoin framework into law, The Straits Times reported. Feedback was due Oct. 16.

Under the draft, only holders of a new stablecoin issuance licence could describe their tokens as "MAS-regulated." Issuers would have to hold reserve assets worth at least the par value of tokens in circulation, kept in segregated trust accounts, and redeem holders at par within timeframes MAS sets, according to a client note from law firm Gibson Dunn. Issuers could not pay interest or other benefits for holding the coins. Banks and merchant banks would have to issue through a separate non-bank entity.

The paper also proposes powers for MAS to designate a stablecoin as systemic, whether it is issued in Singapore or abroad, and a regime to recognize a limited number of foreign stablecoins regulated under comparable rules. Tokens outside the regime could not be marketed to retail customers as "stablecoins." Gibson Dunn put the proposed penalties for breaching those labelling rules at up to S$250,000 for firms, and up to S$125,000 or three years in jail, or both, for individuals.

MAS is still deciding how much of the reserves must sit in cash or bank deposits. A summary of the paper by Singapore law firm ShookLin & Bok said MAS cited British and European benchmarks of 5% to 30% for ordinary stablecoins and 40% to 60% for systemic ones while seeking views. Gibson Dunn noted that no timeline has been set for the amendments to be enacted, and that the amendments had once been expected in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Several kinds of digital money

MAS Managing Director Chia Der Jiun set out the thinking behind both tracks in an October keynote at the INSEAD Digital Finance and Agentic AI Summit in Singapore, published by the Bank for International Settlements. He said markets would need multiple forms of digital money, each on sound regulation and linked to central bank systems, and described BLOOM as the platform for settlement in tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins, at home and across borders.

Chia said Singapore's first wholesale central bank digital currency trial had settled overnight interbank loans between DBS, OCBC and UOB, and that the next step is settling tokenized MAS bills with the same digital currency. He also cautioned that tokenized activity in bonds, private credit, equities and money market funds "remains small relative to conventional markets."

Hong Kong is moving on a parallel track, where HSBC has rolled out its RedCoin Hong Kong dollar stablecoin to retail users. The next marker in Singapore is MAS's response to the consultation feedback, followed by a separate consultation on subsidiary legislation, before any licensed "MAS-regulated" stablecoin can launch.