Project mBridge: Successful CBDC project for real-value cross-border payment and foreign exchange transactions

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26 Oct 2022

Project mBridge: Successful CBDC project for real-value cross-border payment and foreign exchange transactions

Together with the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub (BISIH) Hong Kong Centre, the Bank of Thailand, the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) today (26 October) published a report titled “Project mBridge: Connecting economies through CBDC” to deliver the results and key lessons learnt of the pilot conducted under Project mBridge.

In Q3 2022, the project went beyond experimentation and entered the pilot phase.  The six-week pilot represented the largest cross-border Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot to date, in which 20 banks in four jurisdictions used the mBridge platform to conduct over 160 payment and foreign exchange transactions totalling more than HK$171 million.  It was among the first multi-CBDC projects to settle real-value, cross-border transactions on behalf of corporates.

Going forward, the HKMA and the rest of the project team will continue to work towards developing the mBridge platform into a Minimum Viable Product and ultimately a production-ready system.

Mr Howard Lee, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA, said, “The HKMA is very pleased to have completed the pilot successfully together with the BISIH and fellow co-founding members of Project mBridge.  We sincerely hope that the central banking community will find our pilot insights useful to their own exploration for using CBDC to expedite cross-border payments, and encourage them to join Project mBridge either as an observer or participant to maximise the network effect and realise the potential of the project to the fullest.”

The report is available on the HKMA website.

 

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
26 October 2022

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Last revision date : 26 October 2022