Bank Negara Malaysia to Pilot Ringgit Stablecoins and Tokenised Deposits in Three 2026 Projects

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has authorised three focused pilots for 2026 to explore how tokenised representations of the ringgit could operate inside wholesale payment corridors. The program includes a B2B ringgit stablecoin settlement pilot led by Standard Chartered Bank Malaysia with travel‑tech group Capital A, alongside two bank‑driven proofs of concept from Maybank and CIMB that centre on tokenised deposit rails. BNM frames the exercises as controlled data‑gathering rather than steps toward immediate public issuance, emphasising the need to observe monetary transmission, liquidity behaviour and operational resilience under tokenised constructs. Technical workstreams will probe custody models, mechanisms for converting tokenised deposits into central bank money, and whether atomic delivery‑versus‑payment or coordinated conditional handoffs are operationally feasible. Pilots will also test messaging standards, timing and sequencing constraints, and failure‑recovery playbooks needed to preserve settlement finality. For corporate treasuries and payment providers the trials are an opportunity to benchmark cost, speed and reconciliation trade‑offs against legacy rails and to assess whether tokenisation reduces cross‑border friction. BNM plans to synthesize findings to refine supervisory expectations, technical standards and any links to its wholesale CBDC work, with formal policy guidance targeted by the end of 2026. The Malaysian program is being designed with an eye to parallel regional initiatives, which have shown the importance of clear custody rules, transparent reserve arrangements and potentially staged licensing approaches to limit short‑term systemic exposure. Those international experiences also highlight risks such as middleware or custody concentration and the need for proportional enforcement that balances market access with robust oversight. Depending on pilot outcomes, regulators could either ease paths for broader, supervised adoption or impose additional infrastructure and licensing conditions before scaling. The overall approach preserves policy optionality while accelerating practical learning among banks and corporates.