Bank-backed DLT-based CBDC platform Project MBridge reaches MVP stage

finextra.com:

The project aims to explore a multi-central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform shared among participating central banks and commercial banks, built on distributed ledger technology (DLT) to enable instant cross-border payments and settlement.

It is the result of extensive collaboration starting in 2021 between the BIS Innovation Hub, the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

The Saudi Central Bank is joining mBridge as a full participant. There are also now more than 26 observing members.

The central banks backing the project believe that multi-CBDC arrangements that connect different jurisdictions in a single common technical infrastructure offer significant potential to improve the current correspondent banking system and allow cross-border payments to be immediate, cheap and universally accessible with final settlement.

A platform based on a new blockchain - the mBridge Ledger - was built to support real-time, peer-to-peer, cross-border payments and foreign exchange transactions.

In 2022, a pilot with real-value transactions was conducted. Since then, the mBridge project team has been exploring whether the prototype platform could evolve to become an MVP - a stage now reached.

To achieve this, the four founding participant central banks and monetary authorities have each deployed a validating node, while commercial banks have conducted more real-value transactions in preparation for the MVP release. In tandem, the project steering committee has created a bespoke governance and legal framework, including a rulebook, tailored to match the platform's unique decentralised nature.

The MVP