Earlier this week the UAE’s RAKBANK confirmed it made its first cross border payment using the mBridge platform. mBridge is multi-wholesale CBDC payment solution founded by the BIS Innovation Hub and the central banks of Thailand, Hong Kong, China and the UAE, with Saudi Arabia joining in June. In the same month, the central banks launched the minimum viable product (MVP) version of mBridge.
A key advantage is transactions can be sent directly from the sending bank to the recipient bank without the need to rely on correspondent banks as intermediaries. Hence, it aims to make payments faster, cheaper and more transparent.
“The successful transfer of eCNY to our correspondent in China is a game-changer in several respects,” said Vikas Suri, Co-Head of Wholesale Banking Group at RAKBANK. “It’s one of the first UAE-led foreign currency transfers executed in local currencies without involving a third currency to China and without using conventional payment rails. This is a gamechanger that paves the way for instant blockchain based CBDC exchanges with payment versus payment, fundamentally altering how we approach international payments.”
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