Three central banks wrap a cross-border FX settlement trial bridging RTGS and DLT — live rollout still years off

The Bank of England, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand have published findings from Project Meridian FX APAC, a trial of cross-border foreign-exchange settlement that connects conventional real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems with distributed ledger technology (DLT), according to a joint statement reported by The Block on November 13.

The experiment used a prototype built by Partior, a bank-backed payments firm, which coordinated payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement and multilateral net FX transactions across the three central banks' test environments. Per the statement, Partior's system matched settlement instructions, reserved funds, monitored payment readiness and initiated settlement — testing both legs of an FX payment across RTGS and DLT rails. It also examined multilateral netting, which lets banks offset payments against one another to cut the liquidity needed to settle.

The project was announced in November 2025 and spanned multiple currencies, technologies and time zones. The Reserve Bank of Australia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (the Philippine central bank) took part as observers. Tom Mutton, the BOE's executive director of payments, innovation and fintech, said the work gave "practical evidence of how synchronized settlement could help reduce risk and improve efficiency in cross-border FX transactions."

This is a completed test, not a deployment. The BOE says it plans to launch a live synchronization interface in 2028, informed by these findings.

Key facts

• Project Meridian FX APAC findings published; joint statement from BOE, MAS and Bank of Thailand (The Block, Nov. 13, 2026, citing the central banks' joint statement).
• Prototype built by Partior; coordinated PvP settlement and multilateral net FX across test environments (joint statement, via The Block).
• RBA and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas participated as observers; project announced November 2025 (via The Block).
• BOE plans a live synchronization interface in 2028 (BOE's Tom Mutton, via The Block).
• Accompanying policy report flagged open questions on operational resilience, settlement finality, governance, liability and cross-border data sharing (via The Block).

The real-world read

Read past the "synchronized settlement reduces risk" framing from the BOE and the number that matters is the date: 2028. What was announced is a prototype trial in sandboxed environments, not production infrastructure, and the central banks' own policy report says why — unresolved questions around settlement finality, operational resilience, governance, liability and cross-border data sharing. The report also warns that if an operator starts holding funds or calculating net positions, that could change its regulatory responsibilities — a quiet acknowledgment that the hard legal plumbing isn't settled. Note too that the settlement engine here is Partior, a private, bank-owned venture; the "tokenized" leg of this bridge runs on a commercial prototype, not public infrastructure. This is a milestone worth logging, not a launch. One caveat on sourcing: these findings trace to the central banks' own joint statement and policy report, relayed by The Block; the primary documents are the authority here.

Opinion, and whose

The BOE's Tom Mutton frames synchronized settlement as evidence it could "reduce risk and improve efficiency" in cross-border FX — an assessment from an interested participant, not an independent result. The 2028 live-interface timeline is the BOE's own plan and could slip.

Sources

• The Block (Tier 2, reputable secondary), Nov. 13, 2026 — reported the trial's completion, the Partior prototype, the observers, the policy-report caveats and the 2028 BOE timeline; itself citing the three central banks' joint statement and accompanying policy report (the Tier 1 primary documents). No marketing or sponsored material involved.

This is news reporting, not financial or investment advice.