According to the Financial Times, mBridge—a cross-border digital currency payments platform jointly participated in by the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia—is nearing the commercial launch stage and plans to set up a Hong Kong entity to handle operations. Insiders say its cross-border payment fees are about half those of traditional systems, mainly targeting small and medium-sized enterprises and Belt and Road trade scenarios. Data shows that mBridge has processed approximately 4700 billion yuan (about 69 billion USD) in transactions to date, supporting direct settlement of central bank digital currencies issued by countries around the world, and is seen as one of the alternatives to the SWIFT and US dollar-dominated cross-border payments system.