The Bank of Communications' Macao branch on Tuesday completed two mBridge transactions: a cross-border remittance in digital pataca, or e-MOP, for Macao Industrial Ltd, and a 500-million-yuan ($73.8 million) cross-border collection in digital yuan for Far East Horizon Ltd. The transactions mark a breakthrough in the application of mBridge in Macao.
Project mBridge aims to explore a multi-central bank digital currency, or CBDC, platform shared among participating central banks and commercial banks, built on distributed ledger technology to enable instant cross-border payments and settlement, the Bank for International Settlements said.
The platform focuses on building cross-border interoperability for central bank digital currencies and establish direct peer-to-peer settlement links between CBDCs across different jurisdictions. By doing so, it significantly shortens cross-border settlement cycles and effectively reduces transaction fees.
The Monetary Authority of Macao officially launched trading on the mBridge platform on Tuesday allowing three of the 11 banks authorized in the first batch to immediately conduct a total of 23 cross-border mBridge transactions covering trade settlement, cross-border remittances and other services. This marks a key step forward for Macao in the cross-border application of CBDCs.
