In order to facilitate immediate cross-border payments and settlement, the project intends to investigate a multi-central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform that is shared by participating commercial banks and central banks. This platform is based on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

The BIS Innovation Hub, the Bank of Thailand, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority worked closely together to create it beginning in 2021. The Saudi Central Bank is becoming a full participant in mBridge. Moreover, the number of observing members has surpassed 26.

The project's sponsoring central banks think that multi-CBDC agreements, which link various jurisdictions under a single, shared technical framework, have a great deal of potential to enhance the current correspondent banking system and enable cross-border payments to be instantly, affordably, and widely accessible with final settlement.

The mBridge Ledger is a novel blockchain-based technology designed to facilitate peer-to-peer, real-time cross-border payments and foreign currency transactions. A real-value transaction pilot was carried out in 2022. The mBridge project team has since investigated the possibility of developing the prototype platform into an MVP, a level that it has already attained.

While commercial banks have carried out more real-value transactions in advance of the MVP release, the four founding participant central banks and monetary authorities have each installed a validating node in order to do this. The project steering committee has also developed a special governance and legal framework, complete with a rulebook, to complement the decentralized character of the platform.

The MVP platform is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine and has the ability to conduct real-value transactions. This makes it possible for it to serve as a testbed for novel use cases, platform compatibility, and add-on technological solutions.

Project mBridge is currently asking commercial sector companies to suggest fresh ideas and use cases that further the platform's development and fully realize its potential as it moves into the MVP level. Businesses who are interested can apply to take part by using the BIS website's participation form.