Singapore-based suppliers benefit from instant settlement and elimination of intermediary fees as Nexus links five ASEAN instant payment systems.

Singapore’s position as a financial hub is being materially strengthened by Project Nexus, which directly reduces settlement times and costs for B2B payments to ASEAN suppliers—a critical factor for improving cash conversion cycles. By linking domestic instant payment systems (IPS) across five Southeast Asian economies, Nexus enables real-time cross-border settlement in under 60 seconds, eliminating the layers of correspondent banking fees that have historically eroded supplier margins. For Singapore-based B2B suppliers exporting into the region, the operational impact is immediate: faster payment certainty, lower transaction costs, and a measurable improvement in working capital efficiency.

The Legacy Friction in B2B Cross-Border Payments

Traditional cross-border B2B payments between Singapore and ASEAN counterparties have long been hamstrung by the architecture of correspondent banking. Unlike domestic instant payments—which settle at near-zero cost on 24/7 platforms—cross-border transactions typically rely on central bank real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. These RTGS systems operate only during business hours, meaning a payment initiated on a Friday evening may not settle until Monday, introducing delays that cascade through supplier cash conversion cycles. Source: BIS Innovation Hub, Project Nexus summary report, 2021. URL: https://afcwp.asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Annex-8-Nexus-Summary-Report.pdf

The cost structure compounds the delay. Every intermediary in the correspondent banking chain adds transaction fees and potential FX markups; multiple intermediaries are standard for B2B cross-border flows. Source: Fintech Singapore, "Project Nexus Empowers APAC Financial Institutions to Achieve G20 Cross-Border Payment Targets," 2025. URL: https://fintechnews.sg/112457/payments/project-nexus-cross-border-payment/ This “spaghetti network” of bilateral connections—each requiring separate legal agreements, compliance checks, and technical integrations—renders cross-border B2B payments slow, expensive, and opaque. By contrast, domestic IPS in jurisdictions such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand process payments at near-zero cost to senders and recipients, setting a low-cost benchmark that cross-border arrangements have struggled to meet.

Project Nexus: A Standardised Multilateral Hub

Project Nexus, developed by the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH) Singapore Centre and now entering operational phases, presents a direct solution to this fragmentation. The core design is deceptively simple: rather than requiring each IPS operator to build custom bilateral connections to every new market, Nexus standardises the interlinking process through a single integration with a shared platform. Source: Bank for International Settlements, "Project Nexus: enabling instant cross-border payments," updated 27 August 2025. URL: https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/nexus.htm

This single-connection architecture uses ISO 20022 messaging and API-based communication to ensure interoperability across diverse national systems. Source: Fintech Singapore, "Project Nexus Empowers APAC Financial Institutions to Achieve G20 Cross-Border Payment Targets," 2025. URL: https://fintechnews.sg/112457/payments/project-nexus-cross-border-payment/ In 2021, the BISIH Singapore Centre published the initial Nexus blueprint, and by 2022 it had built a working proof-of-concept that connected three test systems: the Eurosystem’s TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS), Malaysia’s Real-time Retail Payments Platform (RPP), and Singapore’s FAST system. Source: BIS Innovation Hub, Project Nexus – Enabling instant cross-border payments (PDF), 2022. URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp62.pdf

That proof-of-concept validated the technical feasibility of multilateral IPS interlinking. By Phase 3, Nexus expanded to include the central banks and IPS operators of five ASEAN economies: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Source: Bank for International Settlements, "Project Nexus: enabling instant cross-border payments," updated 27 August 2025. URL: https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/nexus.htm The operational goal is clear: payments from sender to recipient are processed in under 60 seconds in most cases. Source: Fintech Singapore, "Project Nexus Empowers APAC Financial Institutions to Achieve G20 Cross-Border Payment Targets," 2025. URL: https://fintechnews.sg/112457/payments/project-nexus-cross-border-payment/

Number of Jurisdictions (Count)Source: Orionmano Industries

Impact on Singapore B2B Supplier Settlements

For Singapore-based suppliers, the operational benefits of Nexus are direct and measurable. By connecting IPS directly, the platform eliminates the multi-layered fee structures of correspondent banking. Where a traditional B2B cross-border payment might incur intermediary fees from three or four correspondent banks, a Nexus-routed payment passes through a single, standardised connection. Source: Fintech Singapore, "Project Nexus Empowers APAC Financial Institutions to Achieve G20 Cross-Border Payment Targets," 2025. URL: https://fintechnews.sg/112457/payments/project-nexus-cross-border-payment/

Settlement time collapses correspondingly. B2B payments that previously took one to three business days to clear—due to RTGS operating hours and intermediary processing queues—now complete in under 60 seconds, 24/7/365. This shift directly improves the cash conversion cycle for suppliers by compressing the gap between invoice issuance and payment finality. Faster settlement reduces the need for working capital buffers and short-term borrowing.

The shared infrastructure model further cuts operational costs. As more participants join the Nexus network, the fixed costs of compliance, technology maintenance, and operational oversight are distributed across a larger base. Source: Fintech Singapore, "Project Nexus Empowers APAC Financial Institutions to Achieve G20 Cross-Border Payment Targets," 2025. URL: https://fintechnews.sg/112457/payments/project-nexus-cross-border-payment/ Additionally, Nexus supports a competitive foreign exchange marketplace within the platform, allowing financial institutions to source better FX rates and pass those savings on to suppliers. The cumulative effect—lower transaction fees, narrower FX spreads, and faster settlement—aligns directly with the G20’s cross-border payment goals of speed, cost, access, and transparency. Source: Emerging Payments Association Asia, Project Nexus Phase 3: Making it “real” (PDF), July 2024. URL: https://emergingpaymentsasia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Project-Nexus-Phase-3_Making-it-Real_July-2024.pdf

Governance and Next Steps

To sustain and scale this infrastructure, the five central bank partners in Project Nexus have agreed to establish the Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO), which will manage the project during its live implementation stages. The NSO is headquartered in Singapore. Source: Bank for International Settlements, "Project Nexus: enabling instant cross-border payments," updated 27 August 2025. URL: https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/nexus.htm

Building on this institutional framework, Nexus Global Payments (NGP) was launched as a not-for-profit entity in Singapore in March 2025, tasked with turning the Nexus vision into a live operational reality. Source: Currency Research, "Nexus Global Cross-Border Payments Explained," 18 December 2025. URL: https://cbpn.currencyresearch.com/blog/2025/12/18/nexus-global-payments-executes-the-blueprint-for-seamless-cross-border-payments NGP is designed to scale globally, leveraging the technical blueprint that envisions connecting over 60 instant payment systems live today across jurisdictions worldwide. Source: BIS Innovation Hub, Project Nexus – Enabling instant cross-border payments (PDF), 2022. URL: https://www.bis.org/publ/othp62.pdf

As more countries join the Nexus scheme and live corridors expand, Singapore-based suppliers will benefit from further compression in settlement cycles and transaction costs. Each additional IPS connection broadens the addressable market with the same single integration, reinforcing Singapore’s role as a cross-border payments hub for ASEAN and beyond. The outlook is clear: the era of slow, expensive B2B cross-border payments is giving way to a real-time, multilateral standard—and Singapore is at its centre.