BIS-led initiative connects real-time payment systems across Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, covering 1.7 billion people.

Background: The Problem of Fragmented Cross-Border Payments

Cross-border payments have long been hindered by fragmentation, high costs, and slow processing times. The G20 has set goals to make global transfers faster, cheaper, more transparent, and accessible. Despite significant domestic advances — particularly the rapid adoption of instant payment systems (IPS) across Asia — cross-border transactions remain a bottleneck for businesses and individuals alike.

Existing bilateral links, such as the Singapore-PayNow to Thailand-PromptPay corridor launched in 2021, require custom integrations for each country pair. This approach scales poorly. A network of five countries would require ten bilateral connections; a network of ten would require 45. Each integration demands separate technical, legal, and compliance work, making expansion slow and expensive. The World Economic Forum has noted that "multilateral connectivity models address the limitations of bilateral linkages by establishing common standards and a single integration point for domestic systems" (Source 7).

Into this structural inefficiency steps Project Nexus — a multilateral solution developed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub Singapore Centre, designed to turn a patchwork of bilateral deals into a single, scalable network.

How Nexus Works: Standardised Multilateral Hub

Nexus overcomes the limitations of bilateral interlinking by standardising the way IPS connect. It functions as a "behind-the-scenes" service for routing cross-border payments, used by IPS operators and their member banks or payment service providers (Source 3). Instead of building a separate integration for each counterparty, each IPS operator connects to Nexus once — and automatically reaches every other country on the network.

According to the BIS, "when a new country joins Nexus, existing members are automatically connected to that country and vice versa. This means the network can expand at near-zero marginal cost for existing members" (Source 3). For a country joining the network, the investment in time and technology is a one-time effort, not repeated each time a new partner joins.

Legal and regulatory complexities are streamlined under a unified Nexus scheme with standard template contracts and compliance documentation (Source 7). The project advocates regulatory convergence by identifying best practices and gaps, and it fosters coordinated oversight between central banks to ease compliance burdens.

The model was validated in a 2022 proof of concept linking test versions of the Eurosystem's TIPS, Malaysia's RPP, and Singapore's FAST (Source 5, Source 7). This proof of concept confirmed the technical viability of the Nexus model, with the project's detailed architecture and key learnings published in March 2023. Building on this success, the BIS Innovation Hub Singapore Centre worked closely with the central banks of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand (the ASEAN-5) throughout 2023–24 to test the model against the reality of their domestic payment systems (Source 5).

Implementation and Participants: The ASEAN-5 and Beyond

The five central bank partners in Project Nexus are Bank Indonesia, Bank Negara Malaysia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and the Bank of Thailand (Source 2). The domestic IPS being connected are: Singapore's FAST, Indonesia's BI-FAST, Malaysia's RPP/DuitNow, the Philippines' PESONet and InstaPay, and Thailand's PromptPay (Source 4).

Following the proof of concept, detailed testing with the ASEAN-5 was conducted in 2023–24 (Source 5). The Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO) was established as a not-for-profit entity in Singapore in March 2025 to manage live implementation (Source 6). Project Nexus is expected to go live in 2026, covering a population of 1.7 billion people (Source 4).

Number of IPS (count)Source: Orionmano Industries

Outlook: Global Expansion and Impact on Singapore

The ambition for Project Nexus extends well beyond ASEAN. The BIS Innovation Hub Singapore Centre plans to establish a Global Advisory Panel of central banks and payment system operators from major instant payments markets, who would advise on the development of Nexus beyond the Southeast Asia region (Source 3, Source 5). Any IPS operator anywhere in the world can use the Nexus blueprint or contact the Nexus team for integration (Source 3, Source 5). The BIS and ASEAN-5 central banks share a desire for any real-world implementation of Nexus to be global rather than regional (Source 5).

This global expansion potential directly benefits Singapore's financial services sector. As the host of the Nexus Scheme Organisation and a key participant connected via FAST, Singapore stands at the centre of a growing network. Each new country joining the system automatically becomes reachable from Singapore without additional bilateral negotiation. Increased cross-border transaction volumes flow directly to Singapore-based financial institutions and payment service providers that are members of FAST.

The G20's goals for faster, cheaper, more transparent, and accessible cross-border payments have found a concrete vehicle in Project Nexus. The initiative aligns with broader trends in ASEAN towards regional payment connectivity, including existing linkages between Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia (Source 4). The World Economic Forum has observed that "shared infrastructure and unified frameworks [can overcome] barriers to broad cross-border connectivity" (Source 7).

For financial services firms operating in Singapore, the strategic calculus is clear: the 1.7 billion people covered at launch represent a significant addressable market, and the network's design ensures that number will grow. Agustin Carstens, General Manager of the BIS, has noted that "Nexus is one of the first BIS Innovation Hub projects adopted by a coalition of interested central banks working towards live implementation" (Source 4). As the NSO moves from blueprint to operational reality, the question is not whether more countries will join, but how quickly.