Saudi Arabia withdraws from China’s digital currency payment system

Saudi Arabia has officially pulled out of mBridge, the China-led cross-border payments platform built on central bank digital currencies and distributed ledger technology. The Saudi Central Bank, known as SAMA, completed its minimum viable product proof of concept on May 13, 2025, and decided not to stick around for what comes next.

From observer to participant to exit

SAMA’s journey through mBridge was relatively brief. The bank joined as an observing member in 2023, upgraded to full participant status in June 2024, and wrapped up its exploratory work less than a year later.

SAMA has characterized its involvement as always intended to be exploratory rather than operational. The proof-of-concept phase gave Saudi officials a front-row seat to the platform’s technical capabilities without locking the kingdom into a commercial relationship.

mBridge itself has been processing real volume. The platform reportedly handled approximately $55.5 billion in transactions by late 2025, a figure that demonstrates genuine traction among its remaining members. Those members include the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE, all of which continue to develop the system toward a commercial rollout under a new Hong Kong-based entity.

The BIS already left the building

Saudi Arabia is not the first major player to step back from mBridge. The Bank for International Settlements, which launched the project in 2021 through its Innovation Hub, exited active involvement in October 2024.

The BIS framed its departure as a natural consequence of project maturity, essentially arguing that the initiative’s partners were capable of running things independently.

Geopolitics dressed up as fintech

mBridge was conceived as a technical solution to a real problem: cross-border payments are slow, expensive, and heavily intermediated. Wholesale CBDCs settled on shared distributed ledger infrastructure could theoretically cut settlement times from days to seconds while reducing reliance on correspondent banking networks.

Saudi Arabia’s withdrawal suggests Riyadh is not ready to be associated with a platform that bypasses SWIFT and dollar clearing, creating channels outside the infrastructure that Western governments have used to enforce sanctions. The kingdom has spent the last several years carefully balancing its relationships with Washington and Beijing, joining BRICS while maintaining deep defense and energy ties with the US.

SAMA’s exit does not appear to signal a retreat from digital currency experimentation altogether. Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 framework includes broad goals for modernizing payment systems. The distinction is between researching CBDCs as a technology and committing to a specific multilateral platform.

What this means for mBridge and beyond

For the remaining mBridge participants, Saudi Arabia’s departure removes one of the consortium’s most strategically significant members. Having the central bank of the world’s largest oil exporter on board lent the project credibility and raised the tantalizing possibility that oil settlements might eventually flow through non-dollar digital channels.

Without the institutional credibility of the BIS and without Saudi Arabia’s participation, mBridge faces increased questions about governance and international standards compliance, particularly regarding sanctions, as it transitions from a BIS-backed project to an independently operated platform.

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