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Ripple has been accepted into the Monetary Authority of Singapore's (MAS) BLOOM initiative, where it will partner with supply chain finance firm Unloq to pilot programmable settlement infrastructure for cross-border trade, the companies announced Wednesday.
The pilot uses Unloq's SC+ platform alongside Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. Payment is released automatically once predefined commercial conditions — such as shipment verification — are confirmed on-chain, replacing the manual reconciliation steps that slow conventional trade finance processes. The structure is intended to reduce counterparty risk and lower financing barriers for smaller businesses.
Unloq president and chief risk officer Letitia Chau said the pilot is aimed at demonstrating how digital settlement rails can be integrated into existing trade workflows "without disrupting commercial relationships."
BLOOM (Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency) was launched by MAS in October 2025 to extend settlement capabilities using tokenized bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins. Existing participants include Circle, DBS, OCBC, Partior, Stripe, and UOB. Ripple's addition brings a focus on cross-border trade settlement, channelling payment flows through blockchain rails rather than traditional correspondent banking networks.
The initiative sits within a broader MAS push to modernize Singapore's financial infrastructure. MAS has signed a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Bundesbank on cross-border digital asset settlements and is preparing a 2026 pilot for tokenized government bills settled in wholesale central bank digital currency. Project Orchid, MAS's earlier digital Singapore dollar exploration, laid much of the regulatory and technical groundwork that BLOOM is now building on.
“Singapore continues to take a leading role globally in providing the regulatory clarity necessary for the digital asset space to thrive. Ripple is incredibly excited to be part of BLOOM, an initiative that aligns with our commitment to compliant, real-world utility for blockchain technology,” said Fiona Murray, APAC managing director, Ripple.
Trade finance is widely regarded as one of the more tractable near-term applications for programmable money. Cross-border transactions typically involve multiple intermediaries, multi-day settlement windows, and document-intensive reconciliation — costs borne disproportionately by small and mid-sized exporters. Conditional on-chain settlement, where payment and delivery are linked by smart contract, has been a recurring focus of central bank and regulatory pilots globally for that reason.
