UK, Singapore and Thai central banks say a joint trial showed currency trades can settle across conventional and ledger-based systems

The Bank of England, the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand said on Friday, November 13, 2026, that a joint trial in test environments showed foreign exchange (FX) trades can be settled across payment systems built on different technologies, including systems based on distributed ledgers. The three central banks published the findings of the trial, called Project Meridian FX APAC.

What Project Meridian FX APAC tested

When two banks trade currencies, each side has to pay the other. If one payment goes through and the other fails, the bank that paid can lose the full amount. This is called settlement risk. Payment-versus-payment, or PvP, removes it by making each payment conditional on the other.

According to the release, Project Meridian FX APAC tested PvP settlement and multilateral net settlement across the three central banks' test environments. Multilateral netting means that many payments between several banks are offset against each other, so that each bank pays or receives only the difference.

The systems involved were of two kinds. Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems are the conventional systems central banks use to settle large payments one by one. The others were based on distributed ledger technology, the shared-database design behind blockchains.

A synchronization operator sat between them and coordinated the movement of central bank money. The prototype was built and tested by Partior, the project's delivery partner, the release says.

What the central banks found

The central banks said the trial showed that synchronized settlement "can be achieved across central bank systems with different technologies and capabilities," and that it also identified the requirements and trade-offs involved.

They said multilateral netting can help banks use their liquidity, meaning the cash they keep ready for payments, more efficiently. The project also looked at legal, regulatory and oversight questions, with the Reserve Bank of Australia and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the central bank of the Philippines, taking part as observers.

"Project Meridian FX APAC provides practical evidence of how synchronised settlement could help reduce risk and improve efficiency in cross-border FX transactions," said Tom Mutton, the Bank of England's executive director of payments, innovation and fintech.

The findings are published in three reports: an introduction and executive summary, a technical report and a policy report. We read the joint release, not the reports.

Why it matters

The release says different forms of money are developing in different ways, and that the systems used to settle large payments are built on different technologies and run in different ways. It presents synchronization as one way to connect them, so that a payment in one system can be tied to a payment in another.

Only the Bank of England's plan has a date. The release says the findings give insight into how the approach could become a live service in light of "the Bank of England's plans to launch a live synchronisation interface in 2028."

Private market infrastructure firms are also working with ledger-based systems. On November 12, DTCC, the company whose subsidiaries clear and settle US securities trades, said it plans to add Solana to its tokenization service.

What it could mean for traders

Nothing changes for people who trade currencies today. This was an experiment in test environments, and the central banks said future work could add more countries, currencies and industry participants and look at the legal arrangements needed in practice.

In our assessment, the practical effect, if the approach is adopted, would be felt first by banks that settle large currency trades: lower settlement risk and less cash tied up. Any effect on retail trading costs would be indirect and is not something the release claims.