Key takeaways:
Today, cross-border payments flow across Singapore and Thailand in a matter of seconds – a technical feat made possible by domestic fast payments systems and a pioneering, three-year long experiment by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of Thailand to link them.
The adoption of national fast payments systems, along with other foundational layers such as digital identity and data exchange, have played a crucial role in improving financial inclusion, the delivery of public and private services, and driving economic development. This tech stack, referred to as digital public infrastructure (DPI), has been identified as a key enabler for achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
The linkage between Thailand and Singapore’s payment systems reflects the opportunities that emerge when regulators across borders work together to connect DPI systems – but also raises questions about how digital systems should be governed as they interconnect and scale beyond bilateral relationships.
At the Insights Forum 2025, two roundtables and a workshop explored the challenges involved when governing interoperable DPI systems and the policy decisions that need to be made in this context. Discussants examined the progress countries are making towards the development of inclusive population-scale digital public infrastructure (DPI), while zooming in on the technical and regulatory challenges of building, deploying, and governing DPI systems that not only serve local needs but unlock cross-border development and growth opportunities.
Standard-setting for inclusive interoperability
At a roundtable titled “Build local, connect global: Balancing between local approaches and cross-border linkages in global DPI development”, discussions underscored the need for inclusive global standard-setting bodies to ensure that efforts to scale DPI across borders do not undermine adoption and usage rates locally.
The session explored the tension between building locally attuned systems that meet local priorities against the opportunities presented by DPI to connect across borders and unlock the freer movement of payments, labour, goods, and services.
Participants highlighted the progress made, particularly in the space of digital payments, noting the outgrowth of initiatives to connect fast payments systems in ASEAN, such as Project Nexus. They noted that interoperability has been enabled in part by the adoption of modern messaging standards such as ISO-20022, which reduces semantic mismatches and lowered the costs of linking domestic systems.
Likewise, the adoption of internationally recognised standards across other DPI layers, such as digital identity and data exchange, can support future efforts to unlock cross-border opportunities and technical interoperability across systems, while preserving the flexibility that jurisdictions need to customise systems to fit their local needs. However, it is critical that standard-setting bodies reflect the wide diversity of countries that have been active in the DPI space, especially Global South countries that have not always had a seat at the table.
Furthermore, the cross-border nature of DPI innovation has resulted in the emergence of global open-source solutions that policymakers can take into consideration when articulating a DPI roadmap for their jurisdictions. Yet, discussants warned that policymakers need to secure the participation of local communities as well as private sector actors when tapping on international solutions. Without the meaningful participation of domestic actors, globally developed solutions risk facing weak adoption, limited legitimacy, or misalignment with local political economies.
As one speaker noted, “Global platforms can provide the rails, but local actors need to define the direction of travel”.
Domestic coordination, international alignment
Beyond building systems that can support cross-border connectivity, coordination to oversee and manage the regulatory challenges that have emerged from the adoption of DPI is necessary. This was explored in a second roundtable titled “Interconnected digital finance: Bridging cross-regulatory challenges in DPI and data sharing”, hosted by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, Financial Innovation for Impact, and the Centre for Financial Inclusion at Accion, where participants discussed the regulatory challenges that come with governing DPI.
As DPI represents a horizontal approach towards digital transformation that cuts across society, regulators that oversee different domains – from data protection to financial regulation and competition oversight – need to work closely together to ensure the safe and secure deployment of these technologies.
First, this starts at a local level: creating mechanisms or taskforces to support coordination across different regulatory bodies to govern emergent DPI systems.
Examples such as the UK’s Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF) and South Africa’s Intergovernmental Fintech Working Group illustrate how such coordination mechanisms can align regulatory mandates without creating new supervisory institutions.
Participants highlighted that such taskforces may be preferable to setting up new regulatory bodies to oversee DPI, but they cautioned that safeguards need to be in place to ensure the effectiveness of these bodies. These include clear goals and metrics to track progress towards tangible outcomes.
Beyond national coordination, international coordination is also critical, given that DPI systems can unlock cross-border use-cases. This could involve setting up international bodies to support cross-border cooperation and alignment on minimum standards for data flows as well as working on bilateral pilots that can pave the way for multilateral initiatives.
Other speakers highlighted the need to continuously monitor technological developments which could change the risk landscape or how regulatory trade-offs have been traditionally managed. For instance, while there has historically been a trade-off between pursuing the goals of financial inclusion and maintaining high KYC standards, the advent of biometric tools has supported developing countries in expanding financial access without necessarily lowering KYC expectations.
Managing trade-offs through collaboration
Across sessions that explored DPI at the Insights Forum, a recurrent theme surfaced: as DPI systems take root, effective governance and deployment will be increasingly defined by how regulators and policymakers manage trade-offs, such as those between fostering inclusion while supporting competitive and open market dynamics.
A final workshop by the Centre for Financial Inclusion at Accion sought to explore these issues by bringing together international policymakers to map out trade-offs that can emerge from various approaches to DPI, with participants roleplaying as regulators, industry players, and local citizens to better understand the short-term and long-term effects of trade-off choices.
These drove home the point that conversations around DPI have matured from a focus on execution and implementation – particularly during the Covid-19 period, where the rollout of DPI was driven by the need to deliver critical services at speed and scale – to a moment of reflection on policy design choices and the need to deliver these systems safely as well.
As DPI adoption accelerates, the question of effective governance is likely to become the critical constraint on efforts to interconnect across borders, integrate emerging technologies, and serve concrete use-cases. Addressing this will require sustained collaboration across regulatory bodies not only on interoperability and standards but also on the institutional arrangements that oversee the evolution of these systems over time.
Author: Yogesh Hirdaramani
Public Sector Engagement & Public Policy Manager, GFTN