Saudi Arabia Quietly Exited China's mBridge CBDC Project in May 2025
Saudi Arabia's central bank exited the China-backed mBridge CBDC platform on May 13, 2025. The fact wasn't publicly disclosed until September 2026. The gap tells you everything about the political economy of CBDC-based de-dollarization.
The kingdom's central bank walked away from the flagship CBDC de-dollarization project in May 2025. The world found out in September 2026.
Key takeaways
- Saudi Arabia's central bank (SAMA) completed its mBridge proof of concept on May 13, 2025, and exited the platform, but the exit went undisclosed for roughly 16 months until the Financial Times reported it on September 20, 2026.
- SAMA calls the departure planned and programmatic; an anonymous source told the FT that the kingdom continues to engage with mBridge discreetly despite the formal exit.
- The episode is a live demonstration that permissioned, state-governed CBDC coalitions fracture under geopolitical pressure, a structural problem Bitcoin's settlement layer does not share.
Saudi Arabia's central bank quietly exited mBridge, the China-backed multi-CBDC cross-border settlement platform, on May 13, 2025, a fact not disclosed publicly until the Financial Times first reported it on September 20, 2026. The 16-month gap between departure and disclosure is the story inside the story.
SAMA joined mBridge as a full participant in June 2024, per Reuters coverage of the entry. Less than a year later it was gone. Its statement to the FT: "As planned, SAMA successfully completed its mBridge [proof of concept] on 13 May 2025. Following the completion of the PoC, SAMA is no longer a participating member of mBridge."
What mBridge Is and Where It Stands Now
mBridge was established in 2021 by the BIS Innovation Hub alongside the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE. The platform lets participating central banks issue and transact in their own digital currencies on a shared ledger for cross-border payments and FX settlement. Rather than a single stablecoin, each member's central bank operates its own CBDC node on the network.
The BIS itself departed in October 2024 after the project reached minimum viable product stage. Then-BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens said the BIS exit was not politically motivated.
mBridge did not collapse with Saudi Arabia's departure. Macao joined in 2026 and activated the system for participating banks on June 2, 2026. The platform now operates under four core central bank members: the People's Bank of China, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, Bank of Thailand, and Central Bank of the UAE.
The Pressure Problem CBDC Coalitions Can't Solve
The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission has flagged mBridge as a potential alternative cross-border settlement system for countries seeking to evade US sanctions. The Trump administration has threatened BRICS-adjacent countries with 100% tariffs for pursuing dollar alternatives.
SAMA says the exit was always planned. An anonymous source told the FT it would be wrong to read a wider political inference into the decision. A separate anonymous source told the FT that SAMA no longer wants to be publicly associated with the project but continues to engage with it quietly.
Both are anonymous. The institutional statement is thin. The 16-month silence is loud.
Saudi Arabia was the marquee recruit for mBridge precisely because it sells oil in dollars and has the most obvious structural incentive to diversify settlement rails. If any country had a reason to stay committed, it was SAMA. The fact that it couldn't sustain even a proof-of-concept membership without quietly reversing course tells you something concrete about the political economy of CBDC-based de-dollarization: nations dependent on US security guarantees and dollar-denominated commodity revenues cannot credibly commit to a Chinese-governed settlement layer, regardless of how attractive the technology looks on paper.
This is the structural flaw no CBDC coalition can engineer around. A permissioned network requires political commitment from its members. Political commitment from US-allied petro-states evaporates the moment Washington applies meaningful pressure.
The threat tool that appears to have worked on SAMA, security relationships, tariff exposure, dollar system access, has no equivalent on Bitcoin's settlement layer. There is no membership to revoke, no proof of concept to quietly complete and walk away from, no governance seat any government holds.
The Dutch central bank's gold repatriation last year pointed at the same underlying anxiety: nation-states are hedging against concentration risk in the existing monetary order. The difference is that physical gold repatriation is a unilateral act that requires no ongoing political coalition. CBDC alternatives do. That distinction is the fault line.
What to Watch
The thesis breaks if a major US-allied energy exporter, UAE, Kuwait, or Qatar, upgrades to full mBridge participant status in a named, formal capacity over the next 24 months. It also weakens if SAMA confirms through an on-record named official that the exit was purely technical, with zero geopolitical dimension. Neither has happened. Until one does, the data point stands: the flagship permissioned CBDC de-dollarization coalition lost its most geopolitically significant member less than a year after it joined, and sat on the fact for 16 months.
The more durable question is whether the next energy-exporter recruit is more willing or less willing to absorb US pressure. Given the China-Taiwan supply chain risk calculus increasingly entering sovereign planning, that answer may be less stable than it looks.
Sources
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. mBridge continues under its four core central bank members: China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE. Macao activated the system in June 2026. Saudi Arabia's departure removes a high-profile name but does not shut down the platform.
No named, on-record official has confirmed US government pressure as a cause. SAMA's formal statement frames the exit as planned from the start. Two anonymous sources cited by the Financial Times gave conflicting signals: one said it would be wrong to read a wider political motive; the other said SAMA still engages with the project quietly despite the formal exit.
mBridge was designed to prove that nation-states could build a permissioned, CBDC-based settlement layer outside dollar rails. Saudi Arabia was its most credible recruit. Its quiet exit is evidence that state-controlled monetary networks carry the same political capture problem as the dollar system they are meant to replace. Any neutral money that requires sustained government participation is not actually neutral.
