New Delhi: Saudi Arabia has withdrawn from mBridge, a cross-border payment platform, the Financial Times has reported, highlighting that the withdrawal was not made public earlier.
Project mBridge lets central banks of different countries transact in digital currencies. The project aims to reduce certain inefficiencies and difficulties—including low speed and operational complexities—that users face in international transactions.
The project aims to convert these difficulties into faster, cheaper and easier transactions for international currency exchange.
Cross-border payments are often slow, expensive, and complicated as the money needs to pass through several intermediary banks before it reaches the concerned person. This is why the project was launched to explore if central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and blockchain technology could come up with a solution to these problems.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) wrote that the platform was made to address “inefficiencies, high cost and complex regulatory compliance” in cross-border payments.
mBridge is a joint project that was launched in 2021 between the BIS innovation hub and the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Later on, even the Saudi Central Bank also joined this project as a full participant in 2024.
The latest financial organisation that joined mBridge is the Monetary Authority of Macao which officially joined mBridge in June this year. This project brought together these financial institutes and explored how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can be used for cross-border payments across countries.
How does mBridge work?
The platform uses blockchain technology which makes all the participating banks connect to the same network which is shared among them. The blockchain is a shared digital record which helps keep in track the transactions, including maintaining who has paid whom and how much. Participating central banks as well as monetary organisations use their own computers on the mBridge network which are called as validating nodes.
They play a role in maintaining the transactions that have taken place as well as also help in maintaining the shared digital record to maintain clarity on the transactions that have taken place. This means that international payments no longer pass through several banks, rather they are settled directly through one shared platform, mBridge in this case.
Why it is seen as China-led
The mBridge platform is often said to be a China-led cross border digital currency project. One of the reasons for this is that China has been involved in this project since the very beginning in 2021 as the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China was one of the founding partners. The BIS said the project incorporated the Digital Currency Institute’s “experience with rolling out the e-CNY pilot in China”.
China also played a key role in developing the technology behind mBridge. According to a BIS report, the project’s Technology Subcommittee was chaired by the People’s Bank of China’s (PBC) Digital Currency Institute (DCI), which worked on designing how the platform would function.
This project has also attracted international attention because it can reduce global reliance on the US dollar when it comes to cross-border payments. The FT report further adds that the mBridge is part of “China’s efforts to develop an alternative cross-border payments system to the dollar”.
Why did Saudi Arabia and BIS leave?
Not all the participants of the projects have remained involved in it. Financial Times on 20th September 2026 revealed that Saudi Arabia had withdrawn from the project in May 2025. The Saudi Central Bank was quoted saying that the decision was made as a part of its original plan.
Saudi Arabia is not the first to withdraw from this project. BIS Innovation Hub also ended its direct involvement in this project in October 2024. BIS had announced that it was handing over the project to the participating central banks and the monetary authorities. This it said it was doing as the project had reached a stage where they could independently continue to develop the project on their own.
The BIS currently on its project page shows the project as “concluded” and identifies the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, Central Bank of the UAE and Saudi Central Bank as partners on its page. mBridge had reached its minimum viable product stage in 2024 along with multiple observing members which also includes Reserve Bank of India.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
Also Read: BRICS: India to push digital currencies backed by central banks for cross-border payments