China’s digital yuan has moved beyond pilot status, with transaction volumes now exceeding US$2 trillion and cross-border settlement activity accelerating.
That shift is increasingly visible beyond China’s domestic payments system, as Project mBridge has expanded rapidly since the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) stepped back from direct involvement in late 2024, according to analysis by the Atlantic Council.
By late 2025, China’s central bank digital currency, the e-CNY, had processed more than 3.4 billion transactions worth about 16.7 trillion renminbi, or roughly US$2.3 trillion, based on data released by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).
That represents growth of more than 800 percent since 2023 and makes the digital yuan the largest live CBDC deployment globally.
The digital yuan has not displaced private payment platforms, but it is increasingly used in government-linked and regulated settings.
These include subsidies, tax rebates, social insurance payouts, and selected consumer transactions, positioning the e-CNY as a public digital money option as cash usage declines.
mBridge Scales From Pilot to Multi-Billion-Dollar Platform
Policy focus has shifted from testing to deployment. A new management and measurement framework for the e-CNY took effect at the start of 2026, embedding it more firmly within the regulated financial system.
Authorities have also introduced interest-bearing features for certain e-CNY holdings, moving the currency closer to a savings-adjacent instrument to support wider adoption.
Project mBridge was launched as a BIS-led experiment to test whether wholesale CBDCs could enable real-time cross-border settlement without correspondent banking.
Early pilots were limited, processing about US$22 million across fewer than 200 transactions in 2022.
After the BIS concluded the project had moved beyond its research mandate, governance shifted fully to participating central banks in late 2024. Since then, activity has scaled sharply.
By November 2025, mBridge had processed 4,047 transactions worth about US$55.49 billion, a more than 2,500-fold increase in value from early pilots.
Settlements using the digital yuan accounted for over 95 percent of total volume. The platform has since entered live government use.
In late 2025, authorities in the United Arab Emirates completed a public-sector transaction using a wholesale digital currency on mBridge, settling funds directly without intermediaries.
As mBridge expands, its focus is shifting toward trade settlement, particularly in energy and commodity-linked transactions.
The platform is not positioned to replace dollar-based systems broadly, but it offers an alternative settlement rail in specific corridors.
China’s approach highlights how quickly a CBDC can move from pilot to large-scale use when backed by policy, infrastructure, and institutional coordination.
The digital yuan is now being positioned as a permanent component of China’s domestic and cross-border payments architecture.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Hong Kong, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Freepik
