UAE conducts first digital dirham transfer via mBridge CBDC platform

The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) conducted its first cross-border digital dirham transfer using the mBridge Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) platform on January 29th. According to Gulf News, this cross-border CBDC transfer of 50 million dirhams ($13.6 million) was sent to China using the multi-CBDC mBridge platform.The mBridge project was launched in 2021 by the central monetary authorities of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE in collaboration with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). This is the only international partnership involving China. The project completed its pilot in September 2022 and will be launched for commercial use in September 2023, one year later. The mBridge platform has already onboarded multiple commercial banks from each participating member country to engage in infrastructure and technology-related work.