BLOOM Cross-Border Digital Currency Settlement Plan Expands: Malaysia and Thailand Central Banks Join

The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the expansion of the BLOOM cross-border digital currency settlement initiative, with the National Bank of Malaysia and the Central Bank of Thailand joining as policy-making members. BLOOM is a public-private partnership covering regulated stablecoins and tokenized deposits, with participants including Mastercard, Visa, Nium, Ripple, Circle, Coinbase, Airwallex, Maybank, Monee, Shopeepay, and the World Bank Group. The initiative will study the acceptance of different forms of money, inter-institutional contracting, settlement, and system connectivity, while implementing identity verification and sanctions screening through programmable controls, with applications spanning payments, corporate treasury, and trade finance.