The ringgit is getting its first officially sanctioned on-chain experiments.
Bank Negara Malaysia has onboarded three initiatives into its Digital Asset Innovation Hub (DAIH) — the controlled testing environment it launched in June 2025 with participation from over 30 domestic and international banking and non-bank players:
- Standard Chartered Malaysia with Capital A: trialling a ringgit-denominated stablecoin for B2B settlements, domestic and cross-border, including settlement of tokenised assets.
- Maybank and CIMB: two separate tokenised deposit pilots for payments.
The commitment that matters
BNM says it intends to provide policy clarity on ringgit stablecoins and tokenised deposits by end-2026, with the work feeding its wholesale CBDC explorations. Certain use cases will examine Shariah considerations, and the SC and Khazanah Nasional are among the collaborators.
Our read
For a central bank that spent a decade repeating "not legal tender," this is a meaningful shift in posture: not endorsement of crypto, but serious engineering work on programmable ringgit money — by the banks, inside the tent. If a regulated ringgit stablecoin emerges from these pilots, everything from token fundraising settlement to on-chain trade finance in Malaysia changes shape. End-2026 just became a date worth circling.