The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced on Oct. 23 that Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined BLOOM as policymaker members, deepening regional cooperation on cross-border digital money settlement.
BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. It brings together policymakers, financial institutions, payment networks and technology providers to address digital money acceptance, cross-border settlement, network interoperability and programmable controls such as identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction limits.
MAS named nine new participants: Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group. They join the initial cohort announced at BLOOM’s launch in October 2025, which included Circle, Coinbase, DBS, OCBC, UOB, Partior, Stripe, Ant International and StraitsX.
The work is divided into three areas: how institutions accept and settle different forms of digital money; interoperability between digital money arrangements running on different networks; and programmable controls embedded into transactions. MAS said shared frameworks could reduce the need for institutions to negotiate separately with each counterparty or market.
Leong Sing Chiong, MAS deputy managing director for markets and development, said the future of finance will involve multiple forms of digital money operating across different institutions and markets. Bank Negara Malaysia deputy governor Aznan bin Abdul Aziz said frictionless cross-border payments using multiple digital currencies were becoming more tangible. Bank of Thailand deputy governor Daranee Saeju said BLOOM would help inform forward-looking regulatory approaches for tokenised money while keeping oversight prudent and proportionate.
The initiative grew out of Project Orchid, MAS’s digital Singapore dollar programme that ran more than 10 trials after starting in 2021. No timeline or pilot transactions have been set, so near-term output is likely to be implementation frameworks and operating standards.
