In September 2025 the Digital Currency Research Institute, a division of China’s central bank, unveiled a center to boost international usage of its e-CNY digital currency. Today it announced that the first batch of 26 banks have signed up to CBETS, the Cross Border e-CNY Transfer Services. While the digital RMB was originally a central bank digital currency (CBDC), in January 2026 it evolved into a (mainly) digital bank deposit solution and is now a liability of commercial banks. This is more than the international launch of the digital yuan. It is also China’s step into tokenization at an international level.
Initially the CBETS service covers Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, the UAE, Qatar and Brazil, with plans to add more. While 26 banks sounds like a big number, in reality there are ten parent banks with multiple branches and subsidiaries across the regions involved. They include five major state-owned banks, ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications. Standard Chartered China is the only foreign owned bank. The remaining four include CITIC International and Industrial Bank, as well as Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD) and China Guangfa Bank, which are heavily involved in China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
While many in trade are familiar with the concept of a one-stop-shop for cross border services, CBETS aims to provide something similar for digital currency. It is an umbrella brand for multiple other relevant digital services (more later). CBETS provides a bilateral digital currency payment mechanism, in contrast with the mBridge platform which is multilateral by hosting CBDCs from several jurisdictions. The 24/7 CBETS payment system supports connectivity with systems offered by other central banks (conventional and digital) as well as with institutions. In many ways, CBETS is also China’s response to stablecoins, which are making inroads into cross border payments.
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