Nexus (Project Nexus)

Overview

Nexus (Project Nexus) is a multilateral model for interlinking domestic instant payment systems (IPS) so that a payment can travel between any two connected countries in roughly a minute. It was developed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and a group of central banks, and is being moved into live operation by a dedicated entity, Nexus Global Payments (NGP) [1][1][2]2. Nexus is a "behind-the-scenes" rail rather than a consumer-facing app or a QR symbology: it standardises how national fast-payment systems connect to each other, so that the cross-border QR-payment and proxy-addressed flows that ride on those national systems can reach across borders without bespoke bilateral integrations [1]1.

Nexus is one of the priority actions of the G20 Roadmap for Enhancing Cross-border Payments, which targets faster, cheaper, more transparent and more accessible cross-border payments [1]1.

History

• 2022 — A successful proof-of-concept linked the test instant-payment systems of the Eurosystem, Malaysia and Singapore under the BIS Innovation Hub [1]1.
• 23 March 2023 — A prototype successfully linked three systems, and a wider group of central banks committed to exploring broader connectivity [1]1.
• 1 July 2024 — Project Nexus completed its phase-three comprehensive blueprint for connecting domestic IPS globally, and partners stated their intention to work towards live implementation. They agreed to establish a managing entity, the Nexus Scheme Organisation (NSO), to be based in Singapore [2]2.
• 2025 — Nexus Global Payments (NGP), a Singapore-based not-for-profit corporation, was incorporated by the founding central banks of India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand to operate the scheme and prepare for go-live [1]1.

The core implementation partners (phase four) are Bank Negara Malaysia, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Bank of Thailand and the Reserve Bank of India, with Bank Indonesia participating as a special observer [2]2. The European Central Bank announced its intention for the Eurosystem to join Nexus as a special observer, exploring a link between its TARGET Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS) service and other fast-payment systems [1]1.

Technical specification

The defining feature of Nexus is its single-connection multilateral model. Instead of building and maintaining a separate bilateral link for every country pair (which scales as N² connections), an IPS operator makes one connection to Nexus, and that single connection lets the IPS reach all other countries on the network [2]2. This is the structural contrast with the earlier generation of one-to-one fast-payment linkages.

Key elements of the blueprint:

• Speed — payments complete within about 60 seconds in most cases, end to end between banks in participating countries [1]1.
• Messaging — Nexus uses ISO 20022 message specifications, with API specifications and implementation guides provided to scheme participants [1][1][2]2.
• Integration point — Nexus connects national IPS to one another; it is integrated into existing local mobile-banking and instant-payment rails rather than replacing them [1]1.
• Governance — the scheme is run by the NSO / Nexus Global Payments, wholly owned by the central banks and/or IPS operators of participating countries. The BIS provides a technical advisory role but does not own or operate the live system [2]2.

Use cases

Nexus targets cross-border retail and remittance payments — person-to-person transfers, remittances and merchant payments that today rely on correspondent banking and take days. Because it interlinks the national IPS that already power domestic QR and proxy-addressed payments (for example, the systems behind India's UPI and the ASEAN national QR schemes), it provides the cross-border settlement leg those consumer experiences need [1][1][2]2. The addition of the Reserve Bank of India to phase four extends the potential reach to India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the world's largest instant-payment system [1]1.

Implementations

Nexus connectivity is measured by membership rather than code:

• Five founding jurisdictions of Nexus Global Payments: India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand [1]1.
• Bank Indonesia and the Eurosystem (ECB) as special observers [1][1][2]2.
• Even with its initial participants, Nexus could connect a market of roughly 1.7 billion people [2]2.
• More than 70 countries already operate domestic instant-payment systems that Nexus is designed to interlink [1]1.

Comparison

Nexus is best understood against the bilateral linkage model exemplified by pairs such as Singapore's PayNow and India's UPI, or PayNow and Thailand's PromptPay. Bilateral links each require a custom integration between two systems; connecting M systems pairwise requires on the order of M² links. Nexus replaces that with a hub-and-spoke scheme where each IPS makes one standardised connection and gains reach to the whole network [2]2.

Nexus differs from regional settlement systems such as PAPSS and Buna in scope and layer: PAPSS and Buna are multi-currency clearing/settlement infrastructures for a region (Africa and the Arab region respectively), whereas Nexus is a global interlinking standard for instant retail payments that sits on top of existing national IPS. It is also distinct from the ASEAN Regional Payment Connectivity (RPC) umbrella, which coordinates predominantly bilateral QR and fast-payment links among ASEAN central banks rather than a single multilateral hub [1][1][2]2.

Fun facts

• The Nexus scheme deliberately keeps the BIS out of operations: the live system is owned by the participating central banks and IPS operators, with the BIS acting only as technical advisor — a governance choice meant to make Nexus a sustainable public-good utility rather than a BIS-run service [2]2.

Status

Nexus is in the transition from blueprint to live implementation. The phase-three blueprint was completed on 1 July 2024, and Nexus Global Payments was incorporated in Singapore in 2025 to operate the scheme [1][1][2]2. As of the most recent BIS update (the project page was last updated 27 August 2025), partners were working toward live operation; no public transaction-volume figures had been released, as the network had not yet gone fully live in production [1]1.

Sources

1 Project Nexus — BIS Innovation Hub — Bank for International Settlements, updated 2025 2 Project Nexus completes comprehensive blueprint for connecting domestic instant payment systems globally — BIS press release, 1 July 2024 [3] Enabling instant cross-border payments — Project Nexus blueprint — Bank for International Settlements, July 2024

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

• MY — MY-malaysia.md
• PH — PH-philippines.md

Regions / aggregations not mapped to a single country

• Multilateral