The five central bank partners in Project Nexus, a Bank for International Settlements initiative to interlink domestic real-time payment rails across borders, are to establish a managing entity, the Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO), which will oversee the project in its live implementation stages, in Singapore.

Nexus is designed to provide a centralised single connection to instant payment networks across the world, using ISO 20022 message specifications and a suite of prupose-built APIs.

Following a successful proof-of-concept between the Eurosystem, Malaysia and Singapore in 2022, the BIS in Singapore has since worked with the central banks and IPS operators of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to evaluate the model.

In July 2024, they stated their intention to work towards live implementation. Establishment of the NSO marks a key milestone towards this goal.

The BIS will not own or manage any of the NSO’s activities, but it will play a technical advisory role. In this capacity, the BIS has published detailed technical documentation covering the implementation guides for each type of participant in the Project Nexus scheme, along with ISO 20022 message and API specifications.