cross-border

According to The Block, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that its "Project Agorá" tokenization prototype has successfully verified the feasibility of atomic settlement for cross-border wholesale transactions. The prototype employs a layered architecture, utilizing tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to achieve "all or nothing" transaction chain execution across multiple currencies and jurisdictions, while allowing central banks to retain operational autonomy.Legal analysis shows that finality of settlement can be achieved in all seven participating jurisdictions, and privacy protection can also be ensured within a compliant framework. The project is jointly initiated by the BIS and the International Financial Association, with participation from seven central banks including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, and the Swiss National Bank, as well as over 40 private financial institutions. In the next phase, the Bank of Canada will officially join as the eighth central bank member, and the project will advance to the real value testing stage, further expanding private sector participation.

According to Bloomberg, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its partners are about to launch a real-value transaction test for the digital cross-border payment project Project Agorá. This project involves the BIS, seven central banks, and more than 40 regulated institutions, including the New York Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, as well as JPMorgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and others.The prototype adopts the concept of a "unified ledger," utilizing blockchain technology to complete interbank transfers between different countries in seconds, trading in an "atomic" manner. The system retains existing sanctions enforcement and anti-money laundering screening mechanisms. The BIS stated that tokenization can safely and effectively address the inefficiencies of wholesale cross-border payments. The Bank of Canada has joined the project, and more private institutions are expected to join as well.

According to CoinDesk, the latest research from Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), shows that tokenization technology is expected to significantly improve settlement speed and reconciliation efficiency in cross-border payments, while reducing transaction failures and operational risks.The project involves BIS collaborating with seven central banks and over 40 financial institutions, including the New York Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and Swiss National Bank. The research suggests that tokenizing central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits can support "atomic settlement" across currencies and jurisdictions, allowing transactions to "either complete simultaneously or fail simultaneously," thereby reducing the credit and execution risks commonly associated with cross-border payments.Currently, Project Agorá has completed the simulation testing phase and plans to enter the "real-value" trading testing phase to explore on-chain settlement applications for certain currencies and institutions in a real funds environment.

The South African National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) stated that they are shifting the focus of cryptocurrency asset regulation to rules governing cross-border digital asset activities, rather than restricting the holding itself, and have extended the public comment deadline for the draft Capital Flow Management Regulations to June 30, 2026. Both parties clarified that the proposed rules are not intended to criminalize the holding of cryptocurrency assets and will not be applied retroactively. A draft manual for the cross-border cryptocurrency asset framework will be released later, clarifying the definition of cross-border cryptocurrency transactions and the obligations of authorized cryptocurrency service providers.

Upward Fusion (formerly Tiger Brokers) announced that on May 22, 2026, some of the company's subsidiaries received a notice from the Beijing Regulatory Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), indicating that the CSRC Beijing Regulatory Bureau has launched an investigation into their suspected illegal activities related to securities, funds, and futures business. It was found that these subsidiaries engaged in unlicensed cross-border securities business and illegal activities related to funds and futures in mainland China.According to the investigation results, the CSRC Beijing Regulatory Bureau imposed a total administrative penalty of approximately 308.1 million yuan and confiscated illegal gains totaling approximately 103.1 million yuan. The company's director, CEO, and actual controller, Mr. Wu Tianhua, also received a warning and was fined 1.25 million yuan. As of the end of 2025, retail customer assets in mainland China accounted for approximately 10% of the company's total customer assets in the consolidated financial statements.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission and seven other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Rectification of Illegal Cross-Border Securities, Futures, and Fund Operating Activities."It is reported that the overall requirement of the "Rectification Plan" is to carry out concentrated rectification for two years, completely banning the illegal cross-border operating activities of foreign securities, futures, and fund operating institutions, and achieving the rectification goal of "resolutely banning the illegal and steadily cleaning up the existing stock."The targets of rectification include foreign institutions engaged in illegal cross-border securities, futures, and fund business, domestic related or cooperative entities assisting foreign institutions in illegal cross-border operations, illegal intermediaries soliciting domestic investors, internet platforms and online self-media that illegally publish information, and so on. Illegal cross-border operating activities of foreign institutions will be banned in accordance with the law, and behaviors of relevant entities that violate laws and regulations related to foreign exchange management, anti-money laundering, cybersecurity and information management, personal information protection, etc., will also be included in the scope of rectification.

According to a news release from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the Hong Kong police announced that they have joined law enforcement agencies from 9 countries and regions, including Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, to combat cross-border fraud and money laundering activities. This operation took place from March 10 to May 7, resulting in the arrest of 3,018 individuals, involving over 138,000 fraud cases, with total losses of approximately $752 million (about HKD 5.89 billion).During the operation, law enforcement agencies froze a total of 101,989 bank accounts and successfully intercepted approximately $161 million (about HKD 1.26 billion) in fraudulent funds. Among them, the Hong Kong police arrested 870 individuals and intercepted approximately HKD 539 million in funds. The largest case involved a Singapore company that was defrauded of $36 million (about HKD 280 million), with the related funds subsequently flowing into multiple bank accounts in Hong Kong and other regions. About half of this amount was converted into stablecoins and dispersed into different virtual asset wallets, with the police successfully freezing $20 million of these funds after tracking.Investigations show that money laundering through virtual asset platforms is on the rise, and various regions need to continue enhancing their capabilities to respond to crimes involving virtual assets through intelligence sharing and collaborative mechanisms.

According to PR Newswire, global payment giant MoneyGram announced a strategic partnership with Layer 1 blockchain Tempo to become its core validation node for cross-border remittances (Anchor Remittance Validator) and participate in network transaction validation.The three parties will jointly build a global interoperable payment network based on stablecoins, promoting on-chain settlement in real fund flows, while Stripe will provide on-chain stablecoin settlement services for MoneyGram on the Tempo infrastructure.

According to official news, Tether announced an investment in the cross-border financial platform LemFi to promote the application of stablecoins in remittance scenarios in emerging markets and to expand the coverage of borderless financial infrastructure.LemFi primarily serves cross-border users living and working in the UK, US, Canada, and Europe, providing financial services for remittances to Africa and Asia. Tether stated that this investment will support LemFi in introducing USD₮ as a settlement layer in major cross-border corridors, replacing the traditional multi-day settlement process of SWIFT, achieving lower costs and near-instant cross-border transfers.Both parties also plan to further expand the stablecoin infrastructure, gradually integrating USD₮ into LemFi's broader product system to provide more stable, transparent, and convenient financial services.Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino stated that the company hopes to promote global financial inclusion by supporting scalable financial solutions and believes that cross-border payments should focus more on speed, cost, and transparency.

According to CoinDesk, the stablecoin project A7A5, based on the Russian ruble, stated that even if the situation between Russia and Ukraine eases in the future and some sanctions are lifted, this stablecoin still has long-term survival space. Its core value lies in cross-border settlement efficiency, profitability, and the construction of regional cryptocurrency payment infrastructure.The market value of this stablecoin was approximately $500 million, initially aimed at helping Russia bypass banking restrictions, but it hopes to further develop into a "direct settlement channel between stablecoins," allowing for direct exchanges with other stablecoins without relying on USDT, USDC, or the dollar system.

KB Financial Group announced that it has completed the technical proof of concept for the Korean won stablecoin in scenarios such as payments, settlements, and international remittances. This verification was jointly completed by KB Financial Group, electronic payment company KG Inicis, public chain Kaia, and digital asset solution company OpenAsset, covering the entire financial service process including the issuance of the Korean won stablecoin, offline payments, merchant settlements, and cross-border remittances.According to reports, the solution migrates the internal settlement system to a blockchain architecture while maintaining users' original financial service habits. Among them, actual payment scenarios have been tested through the offline self-service terminals of the chain coffee brand Hollys, allowing users to make payments via QR codes without the need to install a digital wallet; the system automatically executes on-chain smart contracts during the settlement phase. In addition, in the cross-border remittance test, the system first exchanges the Korean won stablecoin for US dollar stablecoins through Kaia's on-chain liquidity, and then the local partner in Vietnam completes the fiat currency crediting. The entire remittance process takes only about 3 minutes, with fees reduced by approximately 87% compared to traditional SWIFT remittance models.

According to market news, the National Assembly of South Korea has passed an amendment to the Foreign Exchange Transaction Act, requiring companies engaged in cross-border transfer of virtual assets to register with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, bringing the cross-border flow of virtual assets such as stablecoins under the management system of the foreign exchange authorities.The amendment newly defines "virtual asset transfer business," covering activities that transfer virtual assets between South Korea and foreign countries through buying, selling, exchanging, etc. Virtual asset exchanges and custodians are also included in the registration scope. The amendment also reorganizes the foreign exchange business system, integrating the original currency exchange, small overseas remittances, and other businesses into "general currency exchange business" and "overseas payment settlement business." For violations of foreign exchange transaction procedures aimed at obtaining improper benefits, the penalty has been increased from fines of less than 50 million won to imprisonment of less than one year or fines of less than 100 million won.

Ripple, JPMorgan, Mastercard, and Ondo Finance jointly completed a cross-border settlement pilot for tokenized U.S. Treasury funds.The transaction was executed on the XRP Ledger: first, Ondo completed the redemption of its tokenized U.S. Treasury product OUSG on-chain, then the instruction was transmitted through the Mastercard network and JPMorgan's blockchain payment system, and finally, JPMorgan completed the U.S. dollar settlement to Ripple's Singapore account. The project team stated that this pilot achieved real-time collaboration between blockchain and the traditional banking system, marking the beginning of tokenized assets integrating into the global financial infrastructure.

According to the official blog of Ondo Finance, Ondo Finance (Ondo) has completed its first near-real-time tokenized U.S. Treasury fund cross-border interbank exchange in collaboration with Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, Mastercard, and Ripple.In this pilot project, Ripple exchanged its Ondo short-term U.S. government bonds (OUSG) held on the XRP Ledger. After processing the exchange, Ondo sent fiat payment instructions via the Mastercard Multi-Token Network, with the settlement of funds executed by the blockchain infrastructure of Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, and the U.S. dollar funds delivered to Ripple's bank account in Singapore through its correspondent banking network.This project demonstrates the feasibility of public blockchain infrastructure working in conjunction with interbank settlement systems, establishing a framework for global banks to utilize tokenized assets for 24/7 real-time cross-border settlements.

According to market news, the Central Bank of Brazil issued Resolution No. 561, prohibiting the use of virtual assets for settlement in regulated eFX international payment and transfer services.The new regulation requires that payments or receipts between eFX service providers and foreign counterparties must be completed through foreign exchange transactions or non-resident Brazilian real accounts. This restriction also applies to eFX service providers that have not yet been approved but are in a transitional period. The rule does not completely ban cryptocurrency transfers in Brazil, but rather excludes virtual assets and stablecoins from regulated eFX channels.

According to news from the official WeChat account of Yunfeng Financial, Yunfeng Financial Group (00376.HK) has completed a strategic investment in the global financial infrastructure and cross-border payment service provider WooshPay, with the specific investment amount undisclosed.It is reported that WooshPay is a global payment platform strictly regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Hong Kong Customs, providing cross-border fund transfer services for numerous benchmark clients, including Xiaomi, large education groups, and IoT listed companies. Its business covers 170 countries and regions, supporting 155 fiat currencies and mainstream digital assets.Yunfeng Financial stated that this investment aims to deeply integrate WooshPay's leading global payment settlement capabilities with the group's digital asset infrastructure AlphaToken, constructing a dual-channel system encompassing "asset side, client side, infrastructure side, and payment side," creating a full-link ecological closed loop that includes "asset tokenization" and "compliant settlement."

Since the new system was launched by the Korean National Tax Service in July 2025, 33.9 billion won in unpaid taxes has been recovered through cross-border tax cooperation over the past nine months, accounting for most of the total amount recovered cross-border since 2015.Reports indicate that starting next year, South Korea will receive virtual asset transaction data from 56 countries based on a new cryptocurrency reporting framework, and plans to exchange information on overseas real estate holdings and transactions starting in 2030.