There’s a news report circulating that China announced it had linked its digital RMB cross border payment system to ten ASEAN countries and six Middle Eastern jurisdictions. We have not been able to trace this to a reliable source, so it may be fake news. However, the substance of the report is not a million miles from the facts. It’s likely jumping the gun by a few years.
China is a member of mBridge, a cross border payments joint venture using central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Chinese end of any payments uses its digital RMB CBDC, but mBridge does not belong to China. Other member countries include Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. As of late last year there were a couple of dozen observers. If one counts the observers (which is a big leap) then it would have covered five ASEAN countries and six Middle Eastern ones.
The first English language report about the ASEAN/Middle East footprint came from a Nigerian outlet Proshare. It noted that the news implies “that about 38% of global trade could bypass the US dollar dominated SWIFT network.”
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