Ripple and Visa have joined a Singapore-led digital money initiative that already includes rival stablecoin issuer Circle, as Malaysia’s and Thailand’s central banks sign on as policymakers.
Key Takeaways
1Nine new participants, including Ripple and Visa
2Existing members include Coinbase, J.P. Morgan and DBS
3Three workstreams: acceptance, interoperability and programmable controls
4No launch date, corridors or XRP role announced
The Monetary Authority of Singapore announced the expansion on October 23, adding Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand as policymaker members of BLOOM.
Rivals at one table
Nine new participants join 16 existing members, whose ranks already included stablecoin issuers, crypto firms, global banks and payment companies.
Joining now
Crypto and payments: Ripple, Visa, Mastercard, Airwallex, Nium
Wallets: ShopeePay, Monee
Bank: Maybank
Multilateral: World Bank Group
Already in
Stablecoins and crypto: Circle, StraitsX, Coinbase, Anchorage Digital
Banks: DBS, J.P. Morgan, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, Kasikornbank
Payments: Ant International, Stripe, Partior
Investors and others: Schroders, Temasek, Xweave
The roster puts competitors in the same room. Ripple, which issues the RLUSD stablecoin, now works alongside Circle, the issuer of USDC, and Visa joins at the same time as Mastercard. Each new member country also has a bank in the group: Maybank joins from Malaysia, while Thailand’s Kasikornbank was already a member. MAS says the World Bank Group adds experience in payment-system modernisation and the needs of developing economies.
A rulebook, not a network
BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, is a public-private initiative to agree how different forms of digital money, including tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins, are accepted, exchanged and settled across institutions and borders. It applies international standards alongside each country’s own supervisory expectations, so local rules can still differ.
Acceptance and settlement
Which forms of digital money institutions accept, how counterparties contract, and how payments finally settle across markets.
Interoperability
The technical and operational links that let different digital money arrangements work across networks and borders.
Programmable controls
Identity checks, sanctions screening and transaction controls built into digital money payments.
MAS says common implementation frameworks and aligned commercial and operating arrangements will reduce the need for institutions to strike separate deals with every counterparty or market, cutting implementation costs and time to market. It does not put a figure on either.
Malaysia sounds confident, Thailand careful
“Closer to a tangible reality than a far-fetched fantasy.”
Aznan bin Abdul Aziz, Deputy Governor, Bank Negara Malaysia
“Prudent, proportionate, and responsive to evolving risks.”
Daranee Saeju, Deputy Governor, Bank of Thailand
Malaysia’s deputy governor was describing frictionless cross-border payments using multiple forms of digital money. Thailand’s said BLOOM would help inform its regulatory approach to tokenized money, particularly for cross-border payments and wholesale settlement, and let the central bank carefully explore new technology while making sure its supervision keeps pace with emerging risks.
What a cross-border token payment already looks like
One existing member has already tested the idea between two banks. DBS said it completed a dollar payment with Citi’s New York office on Saturday, September 5, using tokenized deposits on Swift’s digital ledger. It took minutes, against an industry norm of up to two business days.
That DBS–Citi tokenized-dollar payment rested on terms the two banks agreed with each other, the kind of one-off arrangement BLOOM is meant to make less necessary.
What’s missing, and what to watch
The announcement sets no launch date, payment corridors, fees or volumes, and assigns no specific roles to Ripple, Visa or Mastercard. It does not mention XRP or Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin.
The first concrete signs will be the publication of BLOOM’s implementation frameworks, and a cross-border transaction between members in the three countries, such as a Malaysian or Thai bank accepting another member’s tokenized deposit or regulated stablecoin.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP.
Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem.
To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem.
His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
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