It’s a little provocative to say the Multi CBDC or M-CBDC Bridge project for cross border payments might replace SWIFT, even just in Asia, given it’s at such an early stage. However, should it reach production, it will remove the need for SWIFT for the participant jurisdictions. Today at the Hong Kong Fintech Week, the four central banks involved in the central bank digital currency (CBDC) project shared details about its progress, including use cases and the 22 private institutions now involved in trials. These include all six of China’s state-owned banks.
With the help of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central banks of China, Hong Kong (HKMA), Thailand and the UAE are developing a shared DLT system where they can use their own CBDCs for cross border payments. The initiative is an extension of the Inthanon LionRock project between Thailand and Hong Kong.
So far, it seems settlement can be reached in under two seconds and it could cut the cost of international payments in half.
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