The BOT, in collaboration with regional central banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), is moving forward with the Nexus project, preparing to provide cross-border retail money transfer services in a multilateral format. The Bank of Thailand (BOT), in collaboration with regional central banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), announced the successful completion of the service and process design to support multilateral cross-border remittance connectivity for retail customers (under the Nexus Phase 3 project). In addition, the BOT, together with the central banks of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and India, as the first members of Nexus, signed an agreement to join Nexus Phase 4 (Indonesia joined as an observer) and hopes that other countries will join later. The implementation of Phase 4 of the project will involve the establishment of a central organization to drive the interconnection of payment systems of member countries according to the plan in preparation for the launch of the service. The Nexus project is a multilateral linkage of instant payment systems of each country. (multilateral payment linkage) through a central system that countries can connect immediately. The BOT has joined this project since March 2023, with the goal of making cross-border payments more convenient, low-cost, secure and transparent, which will benefit the public who will use the services. Mr. Agustín Carstens, BIS General Manager, said that the Nexus project will be the first project of the BIS Innovation Hub (BISIH) that central banks and payment system providers will jointly drive the plan. The successful linkage of the Nexus payment systems will enable international money transfers to have reasonable service fees, in line with the G20 guidelines and in line with the commitment to develop innovations to enhance the efficiency of payment systems. When the first phase of connectivity is successful, the Nexus project will facilitate money transfer transactions between people in 5 countries with a combined population of more than 1.7 billion people, making them convenient, fast and low-cost. Mr. Sethaput Suthiwatanaruput, Governor of the BOT, said that the BOT is pleased to have continuously driven the Nexus project, hoping that the public, especially workers living abroad, will widely benefit from solving the problem of international money transfer transactions. By connecting the fast payment systems of different countries into a single network, although the Nexus project was initiated from within the ASEAN region, Nexus aims to expand its services to cover the whole world in the future. -516-Thai News Agency Source: Thai News Agency