Saudi Arabia Joins mBridge Platform, an International Central | Multipolar Market

Saudi Arabia Joins mBridge Platform, an International Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Project

After three years of development, the joint project of several major central banks (Thailand, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China/Hong Kong) and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has reached the stage of a minimally viable product. The multi-currency blockchain platform, created by the Chinese Research Institute of Digital Currency, operates on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) network compatible with Ethereum. It is designed for real-time cross-border payments (multi-CBDC). In January, the first real transaction on the platform took place between the UAE and China.

In the future, mBridge could address issues of financial accessibility, high costs, and slow settlements in various jurisdictions, including countries under external restrictions. Currently, the mBridge project includes over 26 countries and international financial institutions as observers. In 2023, several Western experts stated that creating an alternative settlement infrastructure based on wholesale CBDCs threatens the dominance of dollar financial institutions and could reduce the effectiveness of sanction pressure policies. Forbes highlights that Saudi Arabia, a leading oil supplier to China, could use mBridge for commodity settlements bypassing the US dollar amid Beijing's "currency transition" policy.

BIS confirmed that in June, the Saudi Central Bank joined mBridge as a full member. The project is actively inviting new participants, including commercial banks and private sector representatives, to join the platform. Thanks to DLT technologies, it can serve as a testbed. It is expected that new use cases will be proposed based on the pilot's results. Since the beginning of the year, at least nine Chinese banks and tech giant Tencent (owner of China's leading mobile payment system WeChat Pay) have confirmed their participation in platform trials.

Follow us on Telegram