Saudi Arabia’s central bank withdrew from mBridge, the China-led cross-border digital currency platform, on 13 May 2025, a fact that only became public on 20 September when the Financial Times first reported it, a gap of roughly sixteen months between the exit and its disclosure. The Saudi Central Bank, known as SAMA, had joined as a full participant in June 2024 after an earlier period as an observer.
mBridge was built from 2021 by the Bank for International Settlements’ Innovation Hub together with the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, aiming to let participating countries settle cross-border payments and foreign exchange directly on a shared ledger, without routing through correspondent banks or the dollar system that underpins them. SAMA has said only that it always intended its involvement to end once it had completed a proof of concept, without detailing why the timing or the silence that followed.
The platform has drawn sustained attention from US policymakers for exactly the capability SAMA tested and then left behind. A 2024 report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission warned that mBridge could eventually give countries under US sanctions a working alternative settlement rail. Riyadh’s exit, quiet as it was, removes one of the platform’s larger economies from a project Washington has watched warily since its founding.
What the sixteen month gap leaves open is why now. Nothing forced the Financial Times’ report to land in September rather than last year, and SAMA has not explained whether the delay was deliberate, and if so, for whose benefit. A central bank can announce a technical proof of concept loudly and let its ending pass without a statement at all.
