Project mBridge: connecting economies through CBDC

Joint report by the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates.

Innovation Hub Other  | 
26 October 2022
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Project mBridge is a collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates.

After experimenting with different technology architectures in earlier phases of the project, the project team developed a new blockchain – the mBridge Ledger – custom-built by central banks for central banks to serve as a specialised and flexible platform for implementation of multi-currency cross-border payments in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Over the course of six weeks in 2022, the mBridge platform was put to the test through a pilot involving real-value transactions among 20 commercial banks from four different jurisdictions. The pilot advances multi-CBDC experimentation by settling real value directly on the platform and on behalf of corporate customers. Over US$12 million was issued on the platform, facilitating over 160 payment and FX PvP transactions totalling more than US$22 million in value.