In the evolving landscape of global finance, a word about mBridge reveals its pivotal role in transforming cross-border payments. Launched by the PBOC in collaboration with Basel’s Bank for International Settlements, mBridge addresses the inefficiencies of traditional dollar-dominated payment systems.
With its ability to instantly convert yuan and dirham transactions, mBridge significantly reduces both execution time and costs, bringing Beijing’s vision of frictionless international trade closer to reality. As international transactions reach $250 trillion by 2027, mBridge stands out by circumventing U.S. regulatory reach and dollar reliance, offering a glimpse into a future where global trade might not be tethered to the U.S. dollar’s dominance.
In 2009, following the Global Financial Crisis, PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan announced, “The world needs an international reserve currency that is disconnected from individual nations and able to remain stable in the long run, removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.”
Moving right along
The PBOC’s first step was creating the e-Yuan, the world’s first major central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and release it in the Spring of 2021. Public servants who elected to be paid in the traceable currency we celebrated and the wild rumpus began.
Fast forward to Fall, 2024, and industrial enterprises, fintechs, commercial banks and start-ups are relocating to Shenzen’s e-Yuan industrial park, attracted by grants and loans up to $7 million and three years’ free rent. To encourage new CBDC use cases and boost the development of the digital economy across industries, Beijing kicked in $14 million for digital RMB computing, algorithms and digital economy data.
Today, Chinese visitors to Singapore use e-yuan and increasing integration between the digital yuan and Hong Kong enables visitors in both directions to use the CBDC. Last week, PetroChina bought one million barrels of crude oil and settled in e-CNY, at the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) ..and that’s where the story gets interesting.
This week, says Lawrence Awuku-Boateng, “The central bank of Ghana is cooperating with the Russian central bank and we plan to conduct trade settlements in national currencies through a bank in China. This greatly simplifies the process”.
Enter mBridge
Cross-border payments, now dominated by the US dollar, will reach $250 trillion by 2027, up $100 trillion in one decade. There’s just no stopping it. The trouble is that international payments are slow and costly, and Washington’s ‘long-arm’ jurisdiction over all dollar transactions has politicized trade. So the PBOC and Basle’s Bank for International Settlements came up with the mBridge digital interbank payment system. It instantly converts yuan payments and credits dirham to the vendor’s UAE bank account. With an execution time of 6-8 ms. and 2.2¢ transaction cost mBridge brings Beijing’s goal of frictionless trade a giant step closer.
Best of all, no US regulators or dollars are involved.
The PBOC (the world’s richest central bank, with $3-$5 trillion in foreign reserves1), the HK Monetary Authority, the Royal Bank of Thailand and the UAE Central Bank have been trading with mBridge for two years, and BRICS members were told that they could join next January, further eroding the usefulness of the dollar as a reserve asset.
Putting $3 trillion to work
A billion dollars is a thousand million dollars. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion dollars, and the PBOC has $3.3 trillion-$5 trillion of them, far more than it could possibly use. As we saw, above, Beijing uses some of that stash to pay off friendly countries’ old dollar loans for new RMB loans but, as trade with the West declines and the dollar’s future looks shakier, it must put that money to use. Kevin Walmsley explains one way they are doing that: Tether.
Says Kevin: “As we know, China is pushing Hong Kong as a global hub for Stablecoins, which are digital currencies backed by fiat money. Western analysts correctly point out that China, uniquely among large economies, is aggressively building out the financial infrastructure and regulation for digital currencies issued by central banks. But these analyses err on a major point: the stablecoins issued by Hong Kong institutions will not be China-yuan denominated, as they assume. Instead, they will be denominated in US dollars, and will be a powerful driver of economic growth to the benefit of the Chinese financial system, and without exposing their own currency to outside speculators, seizure, or debt issuance.
“To see how this may play out, consider the explosive growth of Tether, a stablecoin with stated US dollar reserves of $116 billion and 1-to-1 parity with the US dollar. The sudden rise and global acceptance of Tether serve as a playbook for Chinese banking regulators, who hope to deploy these deep capital pools but without exposure to the Western banking system”.
Further Reading
- Tether’s $100 billion stokes stablecoin stability concerns
- How Tether (USDT) Makes Money
- Inside the Russian Shadow Trade for Weapons Parts.
- Tether’s Ascent: Breaking Down the Dominant Stablecoin’s Growth
- The House Bans The Fed From Building A CBDC Like The Digital Yuan
- What and where are Russia’s $300 billion in reserves frozen in the West?
- China contends for the central position in the global economy
- ASEAN: The ultimate winner of a China-US rivalry (Part I)
- Tether Stablecoin Home Page
1 Brad Setser, foreign currency advisor to President Obama, says that, in addition to the PBOC’s declared $3 tn., it has stashed at least $2 tn. in regional bank vaults.
