Saudi Arabia Exits China’s mBridge Cross-Border Payments Program

Saudi Arabia has reportedly withdrawn from China’s mBridge digital currency/cross-border payments program.

That’s according to a report Sunday (Sept. 20) by the Financial Times (FT), which says the program has drawn controversy in the U.S. due to concerns that participating countries could use it to skirt dollar-dominated payment systems like Swift.

mBridge, soon due to be launched commercially, employs blockchain technology to transact directly between central banks using their digital currencies, reducing the time and costs of foreign exchange transactions and shrinking the role of the dollar as an intermediary currency, the report said.

Saudi Arabia, a historic U.S. ally in the Middle East, became an active participant in mBridge in 2024, along with China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and the Bank for International Settlements, which initially led the project but has since stepped away.

The Saudi government confirmed to the FT that it left the program in 2025, saying it was its plan all along. The report said its exit has not been previously reported.

Asked if the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) had faced pressure to withdraw from the U.S., a source familiar with the matter told the FT it would be “inaccurate to draw any wider inference” from the decision given that its involvement with mBridge was already limited.

The report added that President Donald Trump has threatened the BRICS countries – a group of 10 major economies that include China, Russia, and India – with 100% tariffs if they persist with finding alternatives to the dollar.

Eswar Prasad, professor at Cornell University and senior fellow at Brookings, said many U.S. allies viewed initiatives such as mBridge as an economic benefit and a way to lessen reliance on the dollar-dominated global financial system.

“But they are also acutely sensitive to U.S. pushback against initiatives seen as potentially reducing the dollar’s importance and, even worse, boosting the Chinese renminbi’s role in international finance,” Prasad said.

However, he added that “backing off from such initiatives puts caution ahead of valour” considering the potential advantages of these financial innovations.

A report earlier this year by the Atlantic Council said that mBridge had processed 4,047 transactions with a total transaction volume of $55.49 billion as of November of 2025. That’s up from 160 transactions with a total transaction volume of $22 million that were processed by October 2022.