Saudi Arabia’s exit leaves mBridge running without its western architects

Saudi Arabia’s central bank has withdrawn from mBridge, the China-led cross-border payments platform built on central bank digital currencies, leaving the project without the institutional backing it launched under. The exit was first reported on 20 September 2026 and follows the Bank for International Settlements’ own departure from the project in October 2024.

From BIS project to Hong Kong entity

mBridge was launched in 2021 through the BIS Innovation Hub to fix slow and heavily intermediated cross-border payments, with wholesale CBDCs settled on shared distributed ledger infrastructure that could in theory cut settlement from days to seconds. The BIS exited active involvement in October 2024, framing its departure as a natural consequence of project maturity and arguing the partners could run things independently.

They now do. The remaining members are the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE, which are continuing development toward a commercial rollout under a new Hong Kong-based entity. The name and governance details of that entity have not been made public.

Saudi departure and the compliance question

SAMA, the Saudi central bank, joined as an observing member in 2023 and became a full participant in June 2024. It completed its minimum viable product proof of concept on 13 May 2025 and chose not to continue, describing its involvement as always intended to be exploratory rather than operational.

The timing of the public report, more than a year after the proof of concept, is unexplained, and SAMA has not stated a direct reason for the withdrawal. The platform has reportedly processed roughly $55.5 billion in transactions by late 2025, a figure carried without a named source.

Analysis of the move, not a statement from SAMA, suggests Riyadh was unwilling to be associated with a platform that bypasses SWIFT and dollar clearing and so creates channels outside the infrastructure Western governments have used to enforce sanctions. The kingdom balances membership of BRICS with deep defence and energy ties to the United States.

Without the BIS and now Saudi Arabia, mBridge faces increased questions over governance and international standards compliance, particularly on sanctions, as it moves from a BIS-backed project to one independently operated from Hong Kong.