Saudi Arabia withdraws from the China-backed mBridge project

The country’s central bank joined the project in June 2024. mBridge was created in 2021 in cooperation with the BIS and the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE. The project’s goal is to speed up and reduce the cost of cross-border payments. Instead of using a single token, the platform allows participants to issue and carry out transactions in their own digital currencies on a shared ledger.

mBridge continued to develop under the aegis of the BIS until October 2024. However, the organization withdrew from the project, fearing it could potentially be used by BRICS countries to bypass sanctions. The BIS subsequently focused on developing an alternative solution together with Western central banks — Project Agorá. It is a platform for integrating tokenized commercial bank deposits and wholesale CBDCs.