The internet is abuzz with news that Saudi Arabia has quit MBridge, the Chinese-led project to forge a competitor cross-border settlement system to the dollar.
The news comes by way of an FT “scoop”, which is being framed as a major Saudi snub against China and a signal that Riyadh is now fully aligned with Washington.
In a statement provided to the FT, the Saudi Central Bank said that as part of its research into central bank digital currencies, it first joined “mBridge under the umbrella of BIS as an observing member” in 2023. It then participated in the efforts to develop the basic version of the platform, known in business parlance as a “minimum viable product”, and to create a “proof of concept” in 2024. “As planned, SAMA successfully completed its mBridge [proof of concept] on 13 May 2025. Following the completion of the PoC, SAMA is no longer a participating member of mBridge,” the statement said.
The paper notes that this comes after the FT reported (in a column by Gillian Tett, no less) that Washington previously pressured the BIS to exit the project.
All of that may be technically “not wrong”, but there’s enough journalistic caveating visible in the language to imply something else is going on.
There’s a number of reasons why I say that.
First, it seems Saudi exited a while ago but didn’t put a press release out about it. This hints at a classic PR management op.
Whenever an organisation bigs something up and then quietly backs out, you know the intention is to minimise the public relations fallout. The strategy was deployed by Digital Asset when it dropped blockchain, it happened when the ICO dropped its case against Cambridge Analytica, and it happened with Chinese banks quietly exiting the LBMA. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is also happening with the BoE’s CBDC efforts (which nobody talks about anymore).
