Nexus Global Payments Appoints PayNet-NETS as Technical Operator, Indonesia Joins as Sixth Member

Project Nexus has moved from blueprint to construction. On 9 February 2026, Nexus Global Payments (NGP) - the not-for-profit entity established by five central banks to connect domestic instant payment systems across borders - appointed a joint venture between Malaysia's PayNet and Singapore's NETS as its Nexus Technical Operator (NTO). AWS will provide cloud infrastructure and Endava will lead system engineering. The target is a 2027 go-live connecting six countries and 1.7 billion people.

What Happened

The NTO appointment followed a competitive procurement process involving global bidders. The PayNet-NETS joint venture was selected on four criteria: technical capability, operational resilience, cost efficiency, and alignment with the Nexus interoperability vision. Evaluators cited the "proven track record of the two leading ASEAN payment networks."

PayNet operates Malaysia's DuitNow instant payment platform and has built bilateral cross-border linkages with Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. NETS operates Singapore's domestic payment switching infrastructure and was involved in the 2021 PayNow-PromptPay bilateral linkage between Singapore and Thailand.

The selection of two ASEAN operators is significant. It reflects the reality that the most advanced cross-border instant payment linkages in the world are currently in Southeast Asia, not Europe or the Americas.

The Network So Far

NGP was formally incorporated in Singapore on 26 March 2025 by five founding central banks:

On 1 February 2026, Bank Indonesia became the sixth member, committing to connect BI-FAST to the network. Indonesia is described as one of the world's largest remittance corridors, with an estimated 5+ million nationals involved in cross-border payment flows.

The same announcement confirmed that Jose Beltran - formerly Programme Director for EBA Clearing's STEP2 system and President of EACHA - had been appointed as NGP's first independent Board Chair. Andrew McCormack was appointed inaugural CEO in August 2025.

The ECB Connection

The February 2026 announcement also confirmed that the ECB will continue feasibility work on connecting TIPS (TARGET Instant Payment Settlement) to Nexus. If implemented, this would extend Nexus from an ASEAN-India network to one reaching the eurozone's 350+ million citizens - a qualitative change in scope.

The ECB's interest is strategic. TIPS already processes SEPA instant payments and is expanding to non-euro currencies (DKK went live in April 2025, with SEK, NOK, and ISK under assessment). Connecting TIPS to Nexus would give eurozone PSPs a path to instant cross-border payments with Southeast Asia and India without building bilateral linkages.

FLAR (the Latin American Reserve Fund) also signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore future connectivity with its member countries across Latin America, suggesting the network's ambition extends well beyond ASEAN.

How Nexus Works - The Gateway Model

Nexus uses a hub-and-spoke architecture rather than the bilateral model that characterises existing cross-border instant payment linkages (like PayNow-PromptPay or DuitNow-PromptPay).

Each participating IPS operator deploys a Nexus Gateway that: Connects to the domestic IPS infrastructure on one side Communicates with Nexus Gateways in other countries on the other side Handles compliance checks, FX conversion coordination, message translation (to ISO 20022), and payment sequencing

The critical advantage over bilateral linkages is scalability. A bilateral model requires N x (N-1) / 2 connections for N countries. Six countries need 15 bilateral links. Twenty countries need 190. The hub model requires each country to build one connection to Nexus, gaining access to all other countries in the network.

Data within Gateways is segregated by IPS operator, ensuring each operator can only see transactions to and from its own system. The target is payment completion within 60 seconds.

Why This Matters

The bilateral model is hitting limits. ASEAN has been the laboratory for cross-border instant payment linkages since 2021. Singapore-Thailand, Malaysia-Indonesia, Malaysia-Thailand, Malaysia-Singapore, and others are now live or launching. But each bilateral link requires separate commercial agreements, technical integration, FX liquidity arrangements, and regulatory approvals. The overhead grows geometrically with each new corridor.

Nexus proposes to collapse this into a single standardised framework. If it works, adding a new country to the network means building one Gateway connection rather than negotiating bilateral agreements with every existing member.

The NTO choice signals where expertise lies. The appointment of PayNet and NETS - two ASEAN domestic payment operators - as the NTO reflects a reality that European and American operators have been slower to acknowledge: the most advanced real-time cross-border payment infrastructure in the world is in Southeast Asia. PayNow-PromptPay (2021), DuitNow-PromptPay (2022), and the expanding network of bilateral QR code payment linkages have given ASEAN operators practical experience that no European or American counterpart possesses at the same scale.

The 2027 timeline is ambitious. Building a multilateral cross-border instant payment platform, deploying Gateways across six countries with different regulatory regimes, establishing FX liquidity pools, and passing security and compliance requirements in under two years is a significant engineering and governance challenge. The 2022 proof-of-concept successfully connected test versions of TIPS, DuitNow, and PayNow, but production deployment with live money is a different proposition.

The cost target is concrete. Nexus aims to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal target of 3% cross-border transaction costs, down from the current global average of approximately 6%. For the India-Southeast Asia corridor - which includes some of the world's largest remittance flows - this would represent a meaningful reduction in costs for migrant workers and their families.

What Practitioners Should Watch

For banks in ASEAN and India: Begin evaluating Gateway integration requirements. The NTO will publish technical specifications during 2026, and early participants will have an advantage in shaping the operational framework.

For European PSPs: The ECB's TIPS feasibility work is the critical signal. If TIPS connects to Nexus, eurozone banks will need to prepare for instant cross-border payments to ASEAN and India at significantly lower cost than current correspondent banking channels.

For FX providers: Nexus will require competitive FX conversion at the point of payment. The Gateway model will coordinate FX conversion, but the liquidity and pricing for each currency corridor will depend on market participants. This creates both an opportunity and a competitive threat for existing FX service providers.

For compliance teams: Cross-border instant payments in under 60 seconds across six or more jurisdictions will require real-time sanctions screening and compliance checks. The Nexus framework includes compliance coordination, but each jurisdiction's requirements will still apply.

Sources: BusinessWire - Nexus Global Payments Appoints Technical Operator (9 February 2026); PRNewswire - NGP Appoints Board Chair, Indonesia Joins (1 February 2026); BIS - Project Nexus; MAS - Project Nexus Completes Blueprint (July 2024); Nexus Global Payments - About.