Saudi Arabia exits mBridge, the China-led digital currency platform, and the Saudi Central Bank describes the departure as a step fixed in advance. The Financial Times reported the withdrawal. SAMA, as the bank is known, confirmed the exit took place last year. The exit comes as Riyadh moves closer to Washington and leans on it more heavily.
SAMA set out its own timeline. It joined in 2023 as an observer, within a Bank for International Settlements programme, while studying central bank digital currency. In 2024 it helped build the platform’s first working version, the “minimum viable product”, and ran a proof of concept of its own. That test ended on 13 May 2025, on schedule, according to the bank’s account. Since then, SAMA said, it is “no longer a participating member of mBridge”.
The mBridge digital currency platform allows central banks to settle cross-border payments with one another directly, each with a digital currency of its own on a shared blockchain. Foreign exchange deals clear faster and cost less. The dollar loses some of its place as the currency in the middle of each trade. Saudi Arabia took a full role from 2024, alongside China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, with the BIS as coordinator.
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Why Washington objects, and what Riyadh says about pressure
The American objection concerns control as much as currency. Officials in Washington fear members could use the platform to bypass dollar-based networks such as SWIFT. Daleep Singh, who served as deputy national security adviser for international economics under President Biden, warned China could “exert tremendous leverage in setting the standards for this platform”. Privacy, security, interoperability and the policing of US sanctions were the four areas he named. President Donald Trump has pushed the wider argument further, threatening BRICS countries with tariffs of 100 percent if they try to replace the dollar.
The question of American pressure went to people close to the decision. One person familiar with the matter told the FT it would be “inaccurate to draw any wider inference” from the move, since the Saudi role was limited from the outset. A second person gave a different account. SAMA, this person said, no longer wished its name attached to the project in public, while it keeps a quieter form of contact with it.
A precedent exists at the BIS. The FT has reported Washington pressed the institution to leave, and it did so in October 2024. Agustín Carstens, its general manager at the time, said the BIS had “graduated out” of the project and passed it to the partner central banks. The departure, in his words, was “not because it was a failure and not because of political considerations”. Two exits, then. Saudi Arabia exits mBridge with the same explanation the BIS gave: a planned handover, with no political cause.
Saudi Arabia exits mBridge as the platform keeps growing
Saudi Arabia exits mBridge while the platform keeps adding members. The Monetary Authority of Macao joined this year and switched the system on in June, with a commercial rollout due soon. Researchers at the Atlantic Council counted 4,047 transactions worth $55.49 billion on the platform as of November 2025. The Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the UAE, the People’s Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority all declined to comment.
Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University professor and senior fellow at Brookings, described the position of US partners. Many see such projects as serving their economies well, he said, and want less reliance on a financial system built around the dollar. They are also “acutely sensitive to US pushback” against anything likely to weaken the dollar, or worse, to lift China’s renminbi. Retreating from these projects, in his phrase, “puts caution ahead of valour”.
Behind the de-dollarisation debate sits a plainer question of governance. Whoever stays at the table decides the standards on privacy, sanctions compliance and access. Riyadh has given up its public seat, and its riyal stays pegged to the dollar. When Saudi Arabia exits mBridge, the rulebook remains with Beijing and the central banks still inside. Other US allies now face the same choice: help write the rules, or live with the ones others write.
