BIS Steps Back From Digital Payment Project Touted by Putin
- mBridge will now be run by China, Saudi Arabia, UAE, others
- Russia seeking ways to avoid sanctions, reduce dollar reliance
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The Bank for International Settlements is leaving a project for digital cross-border payments after Russia’s president Vladimir Putin identified the underlying technology as a tool to circumvent sanctions and potentially undermine the dollar.
The countries behind project mBridge — China, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates — will now keep pursuing it on their own. China supplied the platform’s key technological backbone.