Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has announced it will launch three supervised pilot initiatives in 2026 involving ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits for wholesale payments. The projects will be conducted under the central bank's Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH), a regulatory testbed designed to inform future policy and supervision.
The three specific initiatives include: a B2B ringgit stablecoin settlement project led by Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia and Capital A, focusing on institutional settlement efficiency. The other two projects are tokenized deposit pilots for payments, spearheaded by Malaysia's largest banks, Maybank and CIMB. BNM emphasized that the scope is strictly limited to wholesale payment corridors, validating transfer mechanics, reconciliation, and controls under regulatory oversight, and is not intended for consumer distribution or speculative trading.
The central bank stated that the testing phase will allow it to assess implications for monetary and financial stability, measure operational behaviors under stress, and ultimately inform clearer regulatory rules. BNM intends to provide greater policy clarity on the use of ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits by the end of 2026. The pilots are positioned as evidence-gathering exercises to convert experimentation into enforceable regulatory guardrails.
Furthermore, BNM indicated that these initiatives could be integrated with its existing work on a wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), signaling a potential pathway for interoperability between tokenized commercial bank money, ringgit stablecoins, and central bank payment rails.
This move aligns Malaysia with a broader regional trend in Asia towards regulated digital money. Hong Kong established a stablecoin licensing regime in 2025 and is running Project Ensemble for tokenized deposits. Singapore also set up a stablecoin framework in 2025 and promotes trials under Project Guardian. Japan saw the launch of the yen-pegged stablecoin JPYC in late 2025, while its megabanks began corporate payment pilots.
