Digital payments – a story of convergence

For more than a decade, Asia has become home to many of the world’s most widely used digital payment systems with digital wallets accounting for around two thirds of its payments market¹, as consumers take advantage of multi-function super apps that can be used to make in-store purchases, complete online shopping, and pay for bills and services.

But the growth of these apps has typically taken place, with functionality limited to domestic payments. As a result, there is a growing focus on the infrastructure that underlies the individual solutions, with an aim to realise greater cross-border connectivity.

The initial wave of connections between payment systems was bilateral. In 2021, the world’s first linkage of real-time payment systems was launched, allowing the transfer of funds between Singapore’s PayNow and Thailand’s PromptPay². Since then, there has been a rapid rise of similar bilateral links between Asia’s payment apps.

The challenge with this approach is the sheer number of connections that are needed to create a comprehensive network, as every payment system requires a separate link to every other platform. There are two initiatives underway to address the problem.

At the industry level, there is the George Town Accord – a project launched in 2025, by six ASEAN payment networks, to create a common global standards body for non-card instant retail payments³. Its goal is to link domestic payment networks globally, while maintaining each country’s payment sovereignty.

And at the level of central banks, there is Nexus Global Payments (NGP). Originally a Bank for International Settlements project, NGP is a not-for-profit organisation, based in Singapore, that aims to standardise instant payment systems globally⁴. Established in 2025, its founding members are India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. It is expected to go live in 2027⁵.

Private networks are also playing an important role in enabling convergence. AliPay+ was launched in in early 2025 by Ant International to ensure that tourists can make payments when they travel overseas – supporting 35 international wallets and bank payment partners and connecting 1.6 billion user accounts to more than 90 million merchants⁶. When travelling abroad, a consumer can use their existing wallet or banking app by scanning a QR code, without needing a local account.

Convergence is also taking place in wholesale payments, where the emphasis less on connecting different systems, but rather the kind of money that travels between them in large transactions.

Digitised money comes in various forms. From central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to stablecoins, and tokenised deposits, they are complementary instruments serving the needs of different users, as long as they adhere to the relevant regulations and approvals.

When it comes to wholesale transfers, tokenised deposits are in many ways the most appropriate tool.

Tokenised money is useful only if it can reach where a client needs it, and banks have built their capabilities on their own ledgers. Without connections between them, the result is the same fragmentation that QR codes faced in the consumer space.

Broader initiatives are addressing the same issue at an industry level. Project Agorá, a public-private collaboration convened by the Bank for International Settlements, brings central banks together with commercial institutions to test whether tokenised bank deposits and tokenised central bank reserves can operate on a single platform, targeting the delays and duplicated checks that accumulate as a wholesale payment passes through a chain of correspondent banks⁷.

With all the connections coming into place, usage will start to catch up with capabilities. For consumers, the change will be subtle: as the app they use at home starts to work in another country, while the underlying machinery remains unseen. For institutions, the rise of cross-border digital payments, could be more consequential. As moving money becomes faster and cheaper, treasurers can focus on other aspects of the transactions – such as currency rates, liquidity management, and compliance.