1. The Philippines is on track for seamless cross-border payments through Project Nexus, with the country being slightly ahead of other regional peers – India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia – involved in the project.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas ( BSP ), the Philippine central bank, has already hired key executives and established the company in Singapore that will handle the cross-border payments, points out Mamerto Tangonan, the bank’s deputy governor, who heads its payments and currency management sector.

Project Nexus is the Bank for International Settlements-led initiative that aims to enhance cross-border payments among participating countries. The initiative aims to streamline cross-border payments by linking domestic instant payment systems ( IPSs ) of the participating countries with each other. Last year, the project entered its implementation phase with the establishment of Nexus Global Payments.

When fully operational, the project will standardize the way domestic IPSs connect to one another. Pior to the initiative, an IPS operator had to build and negotiate a custom connection for every new country to which it connects; but, with Project Nexus, the operator will only need to make one connection to Nexus, which in turn will allow the IPS to reach all other countries in the network.  

The BSP, Tangonan notes, has selected a technology operator for the pilot, and the platform is already being built, with a timeline for onboarding set for mid-2027.

“Through Project Nexus, we are linking InstaPay [the BSP’s interbank funds transfer service under the National Retail Payment System],” Tangonan adds, “with the fast payment systems of the five other major economies in the region.”