Cross-border payment systems serve as a crucial foundation for fostering international trade and investment financing, maintaining financial stability, and supporting the international monetary framework.
In recent years, the People's Bank of China has been consistently enhancing the cross-border infrastructure for the digital yuan (e-CNY). This effort has led to the establishment of multilateral cooperation models, exemplified by the mBridge project, and bilateral cooperation models supported by the Cross-Border E-CNY Transaction & Settlement (CBETS) integrated service platform.
On June 24, at the Summer Davos Forum, Mu Changchun, the Director of the Digital Currency Institute of the People's Bank of China, stated that the ultimate objective is to evolve into a new type of financial market infrastructure (FMI). This infrastructure would be jointly developed by central banks under a framework of multilateral governance and mutual benefit, with active participation from financial institutions.
It is reported that since the mBridge project successfully entered a phase of continuous real transaction operations in June 2024, it has attracted 49 commercial banks to participate in its business, including 21 foreign banks from overseas. By the end of 2025, the cumulative transaction volume on the platform had reached nearly 500 billion yuan.
A New Financial Market Infrastructure with Multilateral Governance
For a long time, the prevailing understanding of the "no harm" principle in cross-border cooperation has been that the issuance of a central bank digital currency by one country should not interfere with the monetary sovereignty of another nation or affect the implementation of its monetary policy.
Mu Changchun has extended and expanded this concept comprehensively. He believes that "no harm" should not only apply to the macro level, such as sovereignty and policy, but should also extend to the micro level of industry development. This means not increasing investment burdens for commercial banks, avoiding redundant infrastructure construction, and not overturning existing mature financial systems, thereby achieving no harm to the industry ecosystem and market participants.
"Economies, regardless of whether they have initiated a legal digital currency process, can connect, allowing the benefits of digital development to be shared in regional economic and trade exchanges and growth," Mu Changchun said.
mBridge connects the payment systems and legal digital currency systems of various economies based on central bank contracts, equal governance, and a blockchain architecture. It supports localized operation of data storage and management, enabling multi-currency, real-time, and direct cross-border payments and currency conversion.
Once a central bank from a country or region joins, commercial banks from that jurisdiction can engage in peer-to-peer transactions with banks from other participating parties after obtaining approval from their central bank. This can significantly shorten cross-border payment pathways, markedly enhancing efficiency and reducing costs.
Reportedly, the mBridge platform provides 24/7 cross-border payment and settlement services for commercial banks and other financial institutions. Through multi-currency central bank digital currency wallets on the bridge, it already supports various business types, including customer remittances, inter-financial institution remittances, and payment-versus-payment (PvP) settlement for foreign exchange transactions based on smart contracts and central bank money. It offers a rich set of access, payment, and liquidity management tools and has covered multiple application scenarios such as cross-border trade in goods, trade in services, investment and financing, and e-commerce settlement. It is currently developing services like delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement for cross-border compliant asset transactions and on-chain letter of credit settlement.
CBETS Builds a New, Reusable, and Extensible Foundation for Cross-Border Payments
What kind of infrastructure is needed for cross-border payments with digital currency? Mu Changchun believes that, under the new development paradigm, cross-border payment infrastructure should be systematic, extensible, and reusable.
In 2026, with adjustments to the digital yuan's measurement framework and an overall upgrade of the infrastructure system architecture, the three major business platforms—the digital yuan cross-border digital payment platform, the blockchain service platform, and the digital asset platform—were upgraded into the Cross-Border E-CNY Transaction & Settlement (CBETS) integrated service platform, initiating its branded operation.
CBETS innovatively establishes a flexible and efficient two-tier interconnection model that can precisely adapt to the access needs of different types of institutions. It supports both peer-to-peer bilateral direct connection models for direct linkage between different payment systems and a "hub and spoke" multilateral interconnection model, which gathers multiple participants through a unified platform to facilitate the cross-border flow of information and funds. Regardless of the model, overseas central banks, commercial banks, payment institutions, or financial market infrastructures can autonomously choose the access method that suits their technical capabilities and business requirements.
Mu Changchun stated that CBETS offers prominent advantages such as lower access costs, higher settlement efficiency, standardized system services, compatibility, strong inclusivity of participants, and extensible business scenarios. Eligible commercial banks, financial market infrastructures, and payment service providers can all apply for access.
The platform also provides standardized switching services to support connections between banks and enterprises, avoiding the cost and efficiency issues associated with multiple point-to-point integrations. Mu Changchun explained that CBETS can handle business for digital yuan cross-border consumption scenarios like QR code payments and "tap-to-pay" transactions. It can also process businesses such as remittances, trade and investment financing settlements, and support digital innovation services for financial institutions. Subsequently, system functionalities can be iterated upon agilely based on the business needs of participating institutions.
On June 16 this year, the Digital Yuan International Operation Center signed CBETS participant service agreements with the first batch of 26 domestic and international banks.
Mu Changchun emphasized that the CBETS hub, as a core connection node, provides highly differentiated access modes. Whether it is the direct connection mode tailored for commercial banks with varying IT capabilities or the infrastructure-level bilateral interconnection with central banks of various countries, the core guiding philosophy remains consistent: to empower participating institutions to reuse their existing network connections and local standards. This approach not only minimizes redundant investment but ultimately more powerfully advances the realization of the vision for a "single point of access, universal network connectivity" characterized by low cost and high stability.
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