Ripple joins Singapore BLOOM trade settlement pilot

Ripple has joined the Monetary Authority of Singapore's BLOOM initiative, a central bank-backed project focused on settlement using tokenised bank liabilities and regulated stablecoins.

It is also working with supply chain finance technology firm Unloq on a pilot for cross-border trade settlements. The test will use programmable payments in trade finance, with funds released only when pre-set commercial conditions are met.

BLOOM, short for Borderless, Liquid, Open, Online, Multi-currency, was set up by Singapore's central bank to extend settlement arrangements involving tokenised forms of money. Ripple's role links its RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger to a practical trade finance use case, rather than a broader market infrastructure test.

Under the pilot, Unloq's SC+ trade finance system will combine trade obligations, settlement conditions and financing workflows in a single execution layer. The arrangement is intended to automate payment release after shipment verification, replacing parts of the manual processes that still dominate cross-border trade.

The project targets one of the longest-running frictions in international commerce: the gap between shipping, documentation and payment. Companies often wait for paperwork to be reviewed and approved before money moves, lengthening settlement cycles and creating uncertainty for importers, exporters and lenders.

By linking payment to verified commercial events, the pilot aims to make settlement more predictable. It also seeks to improve risk visibility in trade finance, where banks and other financiers need confidence that goods have moved before funding is released.

For smaller businesses, payment delays can have an outsized effect on working capital. Ripple and Unloq said digital settlement assets such as stablecoins and tokenised bank liabilities could improve access to financing for small and medium-sized enterprises by reducing uncertainty over when payment conditions have been met.

Trade focus

The pilot gives Ripple a defined commercial setting for RLUSD at a time when stablecoin issuers are seeking regulated use cases beyond crypto trading. Trade finance offers one such opening because it depends on conditional payment flows, document checks and coordination among several parties across jurisdictions.

Singapore has become a closely watched market for that kind of experiment because regulators have backed tokenisation projects while maintaining a tight compliance framework. Participation in a Monetary Authority-backed initiative is likely to carry weight with financial institutions assessing whether stablecoins can be used in settlement within regulated structures.

Ripple has also been expanding its payments business and adding licenses in other markets. Its strategy increasingly centres on presenting RLUSD as a settlement instrument for financial institutions and corporate transactions, rather than only as a digital asset circulating in crypto markets.

That push comes amid growing competition among stablecoin providers to secure a role in cross-border payments, treasury functions and tokenised financial markets. The challenge is not only technical integration, but also winning regulatory acceptance and fitting into existing banking and trade workflows.

Unloq's involvement gives the project a route into those workflows. Its SC+ platform is designed for supply chain finance, where settlement, financing and trade obligations are closely linked, and manual reconciliation remains common.

"Singapore continues to take a leading role globally in providing the regulatory clarity necessary for the digital asset space to thrive. Ripple is incredibly excited to be part of BLOOM, an initiative that perfectly aligns with our commitment to compliant, real-world utility for blockchain technology," said Fiona Murray, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Ripple.

"Built on the XRP Ledger, Unloq's smart-contract-driven SC+ trade finance platform uses RLUSD to automatically trigger payments the moment the shipment is verified. This partnership combines Unloq's supply chain expertise with Ripple's secure technology to make global trade faster and more transparent," Murray added.

The pilot is structured around a narrow but commercially relevant process: confirming that a shipment event has occurred and then releasing payment. That matters because one barrier to the wider use of tokenised money in trade is proving it can interact with real-world commercial milestones, not just digital asset platforms.

It also reflects a broader shift in policy and market interest toward programmable settlement. Rather than treating payment as a separate end-stage function, programmable systems aim to embed settlement terms into a transaction so funds move when agreed conditions are fulfilled.

Regulated model

The Singapore framework gives participants a controlled environment to test whether that model can work across borders. For Ripple, it offers a chance to show that RLUSD can be used in a regulated setting tied to actual trade activity. For Unloq, it is an opportunity to demonstrate that digital settlement rails can be added to existing financing processes without requiring businesses to change their commercial relationships.

"BLOOM represents an important step toward modernising trade finance infrastructure in a controlled and regulated environment. Through SC+, we are demonstrating how digital settlement rails can be integrated into existing trade and financing workflows without disrupting commercial relationships. Collaboration with MAS and Ripple enables us to explore scalable, interoperable models for cross-border trade," Letitia Chau, President and Chief Risk Officer of Unloq, said.