Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand team up to make stablecoin payments easier

Singapore has brought Malaysia and Thailand into its BLOOM initiative, bringing three Southeast Asian central banks together to develop common approaches for cross-border transactions involving regulated stablecoins and tokenized bank deposits. Summary Malaysia and Thailand’s central banks have joined Singapore’s BLOOM initiative to coordinate cross-border digital money settlement. Ripple, Mastercard, Maybank and other major payment companies have joined the expanded initiative. The project covers regulated stablecoins, tokenized deposits, interoperability and programmable compliance controls. Malaysia is testing ringgit stablecoins, while Thailand is consulting on rules for baht-backed stablecoin issuers. Ripple’s RLUSD and Circle’s USDC could benefit from compatible settlement frameworks, but no regional approval was announced. According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s October 23 announcement, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand have joined the program as policymaker members. The collaboration will address how different forms of digital money can be accepted, exchanged and settled between financial institutions operating under separate national rules. Three cen...