Malaysia, Thailand join Singapore's BLOOM stablecoin payments push

The central banks of Malaysia and Thailand have joined BLOOM, Singapore's initiative for using stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits in cross-border payments, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced on Friday. Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand become policymaker members next to MAS.

What BLOOM is

BLOOM stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. MAS launched it in October 2025 as a public-private project that builds on Project Orchid, its earlier research into a digital Singapore dollar. The aim is shared rules and infrastructure so that a bank or payment firm does not have to strike a separate deal with every counterparty or market before it can settle in digital money. MAS says that should cut costs and speed up launches.

The three central banks and their industry partners will work on three areas:

• Acceptance and settlement: how institutions accept different kinds of digital money and settle trades across jurisdictions.
• Interoperability: technical and operating standards so digital money works across networks and borders.
• Programmable controls: identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction limits built into payments.

Who is involved

New industry members are Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay and Visa, and the World Bank Group joins to bring the view of developing economies. They join existing participants including Circle, Coinbase, Anchorage Digital, Ant International, DBS, J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered, Stripe and StraitsX.

Why it matters

Stablecoins are moving from crypto trading into everyday payments, but each country regulates them differently. A regional rulebook backed by three central banks could make it easier for licensed tokens, such as Hong Kong's new HSBC RedCoin, to move between markets. Malaysia already settles tokenized bonds in central bank money on its SSDS+ platform, and said in February that three pilots would test ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits this year. If you are new to the asset class, start with what a stablecoin is and how it differs from a central bank digital currency.