Bank of England, MAS and Bank of Thailand complete Project Meridian FX APAC trial

Three central banks — the Bank of England, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand — said Friday they completed a trial of synchronized foreign exchange settlement across different currencies and systems.

The central banks published the findings from their collaboration under Project Meridian FX APAC, according to a statement. The project tested synchronized cross-border FX settlement and explored how it could support interoperability across wholesale settlement environments built on different technologies and operating models.

What did the trial actually test?

Building on earlier work, the project tested payment-versus-payment (PvP) FX settlement and multilateral net FX settlement across the three central banks' test environments. The trial spanned both Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) systems and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) based settlement systems.

The project covered a wider range of currencies, technologies, infrastructures and time zones than its predecessors. Partior, the project's delivery partner, developed, integrated and tested the Synchronization Operator (SO) prototype for the trial.

The central banks said the trial demonstrated that synchronized settlement can be achieved across central bank systems with different technologies and capabilities. It also identified the functional requirements and integration trade-offs involved.

How does it reduce risk?

The participants demonstrated how multilateral net FX settlement through synchronization can reduce settlement risk while delivering liquidity efficiencies. In FX markets, settlement risk arises when one party pays out a currency but does not receive the counter-currency in return.

Synchronization addresses that problem by linking the legs of a trade so they settle together, even when the underlying systems run on different technology stacks. The project also examined the legal, regulatory and oversight considerations for applying synchronized FX settlement in practice, with input from the Reserve Bank of Australia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, who participated as observer central banks.

The findings appear across three complementary reports: an Executive Summary and Introduction, a Technical Report, and a Policy Report. Together, they set out the experimental results, key technical findings and policy considerations.

What did the central bankers say?

Tom Mutton, Executive Director of Payments, Innovation and Fintech at the Bank of England, said: "Innovation has the greatest impact when it addresses real world challenges. Project Meridian FX APAC provides practical evidence of how synchronized settlement could help reduce risk and improve efficiency in cross-border FX transactions."

"The results provide a strong foundation for further collaboration as we explore how this approach could be developed towards real-world use," Mutton added.

Kenneth Gay, Chief FinTech Officer at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said cross-border settlement increasingly takes place across systems built on different technologies and operating models.

"Project Meridian FX APAC has shown how synchronization could help enable PvP settlement across these diverse environments, reducing settlement risk while supporting greater interoperability," Gay said.

Puckada Treeratpituk, Director of Payment Systems and Financial Technology Policy Department at the Bank of Thailand, said the project successfully demonstrated that synchronisation can work across diverse wholesale settlement systems, making cross-border FX safer and more efficient while preserving trust in central bank money.

"The insights on technical integration, operating models and regulatory considerations established a practical foundation for modernising wholesale settlement infrastructure," Treeratpituk said.

What comes next?

Future work could extend the existing approach to additional jurisdictions and industry participants, a wider range of currencies and transaction scenarios. The central banks also flagged the need to further consider the technical, legal, operational and governance arrangements required in practice.

For banks and payment infrastructure operators, the trial signals a credible path toward safer cross-border FX settlement without forcing every system onto a single technology — the next question is which jurisdictions and commercial participants join the framework.