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

The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the expansion of the BLOOM cross-border digital currency settlement program, with Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joining, making the three parties members of the policy-making body for the program.

BLOOM is a public-private partnership initiative 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 program will explore the acceptance of different forms of currency, inter-institutional contracting, settlement, and system connectivity, and will implement identity verification and sanction screening through programmable controls, with applications covering payments, corporate treasury, and trade financing.