Saudi Arabia exits mBridge, the China-backed CBDC project
SAMA says it finished its mBridge proof of concept in May 2025 and then left. China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE are taking the platform commercial.
Saudi Arabia is no longer part of mBridge, the shared platform that lets several central banks settle cross-border payments using wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has confirmed its exit.
SAMA's explanation
In its statement, the central bank said it "successfully completed its mBridge proof of concept on 13 May 2025" and stopped being a participating member after that date. SAMA had come on board as a full participant in June 2024, aiming to test whether wholesale CBDCs could make international payments and settlement between banks faster.
The members that remain
mBridge was created by four central banks: the People's Bank of China, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand and the Central Bank of the UAE. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) took part in the early stages but "graduated out" in October 2024, on the view that the central banks could carry the project forward without it.
Those four founding members are now preparing a commercial rollout through a new entity based in Hong Kong.
Two readings of the exit
Explanations for the move differ. One account links it to governance and compliance concerns raised in internal Saudi reviews, especially over how transaction data is handled across jurisdictions. Another sees it simply as the natural end of a research phase, not a rejection of digital currencies.
Wholesale and retail CBDCs
A wholesale CBDC is used by banks and financial institutions to settle large payments between themselves, while a retail CBDC is digital cash for the general public. mBridge deals only with the wholesale kind.
Where India fits
India is not an mBridge member. The RBI runs its own wholesale and retail digital rupee pilots and is now testing the wholesale e₹ for settling tokenised corporate bonds. Saudi Arabia's decision shows that building cross-border CBDC rails, and deciding who controls the data that flows over them, is as much a geopolitical question as a technical one.
This article is AI-assisted, educational and general in nature. It is not financial advice and never a guarantee of profit. Every trade is at your own risk on your own exchange. See our risk disclosure and editorial policy.
