Malaysia and Thailand central banks join Singapore digital money initiative
The three central banks will work with industry participants on shared approaches to cross-border digital money transactions.
Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have become policymaker members of Bloom, Singapore’s initiative for digital money used across borders, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said on 23 October. The three authorities will work with industry participants in their jurisdictions to develop shared approaches.
Their work will address accepting, exchanging and settling different types of digital money between institutions, networks and jurisdictions. MAS said closer coordination was important as financial institutions and jurisdictions develop uses for instruments such as tokenised deposits and regulated stablecoins.
Bloom stands for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency. The public-private programme brings policymakers together with financial institutions, payment networks and technology providers. Participants will concentrate on cross-border acceptance and settlement, compatibility between digital money arrangements, and programmable safeguards covering identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction controls.
The central banks’ collaboration will also identify relevant international standards and consider how jurisdiction-specific supervisory expectations could apply to cross-border transactions, taking differing local requirements into account.
Bloom’s expanded membership includes Airwallex, Mastercard, Maybank, Monee, Nium, Ripple, ShopeePay, Visa and the World Bank Group. MAS said the initiative would lower implementation costs and shorten time to market by reducing separate counterparty or market arrangements. It said central bank involvement would ensure policy and regulatory considerations inform the approaches being developed.
