Crunchfish taps CMA enable offline payments for Central Banks

By Vriti Gothi

Crunchfish AB has partnered with CMA Small Systems to develop resilient payment infrastructure solutions for central banks and financial institutions, with a particular focus on enabling offline payments.

Announced on the sidelines of Sibos in Frankfurt, the collaboration brings together Crunchfish’s Digital Cash technology and CMA’s experience in delivering large-scale, mission-critical financial market infrastructure. The partners aim to address a growing concern among regulators and payment system operators: ensuring continuity of payments during network outages, system disruptions, or in regions with unreliable connectivity.

The partnership has already commenced with a joint project centred on offline payment capabilities. This initiative is expected to extend the functionality of CMA’s Instant Payment System (IPS), which is currently live in 12 countries, by adding an offline contingency layer. Such functionality is increasingly seen as critical for national payment systems as real-time payments become systemically important and more tightly embedded in daily economic activity.

CMA brings an extensive global footprint to the partnership. The company has delivered hundreds of projects across 58 countries, serving more than 55 central banks and 1,500 commercial banks. Its portfolio spans core payment and market infrastructure, including real-time gross settlement, instant payments, automated clearing, transaction hubs, depository and registry systems, and trading platforms. These systems underpin payment and capital markets infrastructure across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

By integrating Digital Cash into CMA’s existing platforms, the partners aim to offer solutions that function seamlessly both online and offline for public-sector authorities as well as commercial banks and payment service providers. The approach reflects a broader industry shift toward designing payment systems that prioritise resilience and operational continuity alongside speed and efficiency.

“This partnership combines innovation with proven infrastructure. By bringing Crunchfish’s Digital Cash technology together with CMA’s experience across central banks and financial market infrastructures, we are ready to help financial authorities and institutions build resilient, future-ready ecosystems,” said Maxim Neshcheret, CMA’s Regional Director for Asia-Pacific and Central Asia.

As central banks globally explore upgrades to instant payment rails and digital currency initiatives, the ability to support offline transactions is emerging as a key differentiator. The Crunchfish–CMA partnership positions both companies to address this requirement at a time when resilience is becoming as critical to payment infrastructure as real-time performance.