Under the guidance and support of the Xiongan New Area branch of the People’s Bank of China, the Hebei Xiongan branch of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China completed the first multilateral central bank digital currency bridge service for Sinochem Finance, one of the first financial companies to be relocated from central state owned enterprises (SOEs).
This transaction represents ICBC’s Hebei Xiongan branch’s active exploration and practice in promoting the internationalization and digitalization of the RMB. It further broadens cross-border RMB settlement channels for businesses in the Xiongan New Area and marks the official launch of the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge’s cross-border payment scenario in the Xiongan New Area.
The multilateral central bank digital currency bridge (mCBDC Bridge) was jointly initiated by the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Bank of Thailand, and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates.
It aims to explore the application of digital currencies of monetary authorities in cross-border payments based on blockchain technology, focusing on addressing challenges such as high costs, low efficiency, and lack of transparency in cross-border payments. mBridge ensures that monetary authorities can flexibly implement regulations based on their own national capital regulation or foreign exchange policies, helping to eliminate single-point risks and unilateralism and build a new type of financial infrastructure that is globally unified, multi-party coordinated, secure, and efficient.
Through the Digital Currency Bridge network, the service enables direct, point-to-point transfer of funds from corporate cash pool accounts to overseas member entities’ receiving banks. This service offers advantages such as instantaneous fund arrival, no intermediary bank fees, and a secure and transparent process. It effectively improves capital flow efficiency and reduces corporate transaction costs.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) Xiong’an Branch in Hebei Province actively responded to the People’s Bank of China’s Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge work plan. Combining the Digital Currency Bridge with the integrated domestic and foreign currency cash pool services for multinational corporations, the branch precisely aligned with the business needs of Sinochem Group Finance and, under the guidance of the ICBC Head Office Digital Currency Office, developed a business plan and reached the first business cooperation agreement.
Source (machine translated from Chinese)