The Bank for International Settlements is to move toward live implementation of Prject Nexus, an initiative that seeks to enhance cross-border payments by connecting multiple domestic instant payment systems globally.

The live launch follows an earlier phase of development in which a prototype of Nexus was used to successfully connect the test versions of three established instant payment networks: the Eurosystem’s Target Instant Payment Settlement (Tips), Malaysia’s Real-time Retail Payments Platform (RPP) and Singapore’s Fast and Secure Transfers (Fast) payment system.

Nexus is designed to standardise the way domestic IPS connect to one another. Rather than an IPS operator building custom connections for every new country to which it connects, the operator only needs to make one connection to Nexus. This single connection would allow the IPS to reach all other countries in the network.

The go-live will entail links between real-time payment systems in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

The partner central banks and IPS operators have agreed to work towards establishing a new entity, the Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO), which will be wholly-owned by participating banks and responsible for managing the Nexus scheme.

Agustín Carstens, general manager of the BIS, states: “This is the first BIS Innovation Hub project that central banks are moving towards a live phase together with instant payment providers.

“Even with just the first wave of connected countries, Nexus has the potential to connect a market of 1.7 billion people globally, allowing them to make instant payments to each other easily and cheaply.”