Malaysia and Thailand Central Banks Join Singapore’s BLOOM as Roster Hits 24 Firms

Maybank, one of nine new BLOOM participants, already runs one of Bank Negara Malaysia’s three ringgit stablecoin and tokenized deposit pilots, while Thailand’s Kasikornbank was in the group before the Bank of Thailand.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and the Bank of Thailand (BOT) joined BLOOM, Singapore’s cross-border settlement initiative for stablecoins and tokenized deposits, on Friday.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the move. It launched BLOOM in October 2025 as a public-private group of banks, payment networks and tech firms. The two central banks now sit beside MAS as policymaker members. Together, they will work with industry on how different forms of digital money are accepted, exchanged and settled across borders.

Home Banks Already on the Roster

MAS also added nine participants, including Mastercard, Visa, and Ripple. In March, Ripple said it would test RLUSD for trade finance payments with Unloq inside BLOOM. Mastercard, for its part, already settles merchant transactions in stablecoins such as RLUSD and USDC. Outside payments, the new names include the World Bank Group, which MAS said will bring the needs of developing economies to the table.

Each new central bank has a home lender on the list. For Malaysia, that lender is Maybank, which joined on Friday. Maybank already leads one of three ringgit pilots that BNM onboarded in February. Those pilots test ringgit stablecoins and tokenized deposits for wholesale payments, both domestic and cross-border. BNM has said it will give clearer guidance on both instruments by the end of 2026.

Thailand’s Kasikornbank was a BLOOM member before its central bank signed on. The roster now counts 24 industry members, from Circle and Coinbase to DBS, J.P. Morgan and Standard Chartered.

Settlement Rules Before Scale

Participants will work on three areas. The first covers how institutions accept and settle digital money across jurisdictions. The second covers interoperability between networks and systems. The third covers programmable controls such as identity verification, sanctions screening and transaction limits.

MAS argued that shared frameworks would spare banks from building separate arrangements with each counterparty or market. That, it said, should lower costs and speed up launches.

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BNM Deputy Governor Aznan bin Abdul Aziz struck an upbeat tone.

“A future where frictionless cross-border payments can be made using multiple digital monies is now closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy,” he said.

BOT sounded more cautious. Its deputy governor, Dr Daranee Saeju, said the bank would use BLOOM to inform regulatory approaches for tokenized money, particularly in wholesale settlement.

“The initiative also allows us to carefully explore emerging innovations, while ensuring our oversight remains prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks,” she said.