The digital currency that could upend how the Gulf trades

Project mBridge – a China-led central bank digital currency initiative, which the UAE and Saudi Arabia are part of – could have “broad strategic implications” for regional trade, according to market analysts. 

A CBDC is a digital form of a country’s fiat currency, which is backed by a government. It eliminates the need for intermediaries like banks, or even other currencies such as the US dollar, to facilitate real-time, peer-to-peer, cross-border payments. 

“When we look at international trade, not much has changed over the decades. It is a primitive method in the digital age,” Arun Leslie John, chief market analyst at Century Financial, said. 

China’s global digital yuan transactions amounted to 7 trillion yuan ($986 billion) in the first six months of this year. The UAE’s inaugural cross-border payment utilising the digital dirham amounted to AED50 million ($13.6 million). 

Considering the UAE and China are major trading partners with the total volume of bilateral trade between the two countries reaching $95 billion last year, project mBridge would significantly reduce and replace the use of dollars in this case. 

However, analysts believe that it might be too early to conclude whether CBDCs could result in global de-dollarisation. 

• UAE and China renew $4.9bn currency swap deal
• India pushes for more rupee-dirham payment in UAE trade
• Bahrain – and the world – needs a centrally-owned digital currency

“Dollar is the choice of transaction for global trade. The US has the deepest capital, debt and equity market. Many countries around the world would want to diversify away from the dollar but they aren’t able to do so,” John said. 

While Europe does not have deep debt markets, the Chinese government has capital controls over the yuan. So the only remaining choice is the dollar. 

Countries such as Russia and Iran that are facing sanctions stand to be beneficiaries of CBDCs and initiatives like mBridge too. While the Russian central bank announced plans to launch its CBDC next year, the central bank of Iran said that its digital rial will be used for retail transactions, including purchasing goods and services.

“In the current international payment structure, countries can arbitrarily kick out one country from the system. This reduces strategic autonomy and political power of other countries involved,” John said. 

To find out how CBDC’s work and its retail use cases, watch the video above