Industrial Bank Chongqing Branch successfully launches the first digital yuan "Currency Bridge" cross-border remittance service!

Writing: RWA Research Institute

In April 2026, the chief financial officer of an auto parts export company in Chongqing completed a payment to a Southeast Asian supplier. Enter the amount, confirm the remittance, wait for the funds to arrive—this process was no different from the past. But this time, the waiting time changed from 3 business days to just a few seconds.

According to information disclosed externally by the Industrial Bank Chongqing Branch on April 22, the bank recently successfully handled its first multi-party central bank digital currency (CBDC) cross-border remittance using digital renminbi. If we only look at this one transaction, it is merely an innovative case at the branch level; but when viewed within the dual context of exploring cross-border applications of digital renminbi and the national strategy of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, the technological revolution and institutional breakthroughs behind this “few seconds” are far more profound than they appear on the surface.

In fact, Industrial Bank is not an isolated example. According to previous public information, in February this year, the Changsha Branch completed a 270 million yuan CBDC cross-border payment via a currency bridge, setting the record for the largest single transaction in Hunan Province; earlier, the Changchun Branch also successfully handled Jilin Province’s first digital currency bridge cross-border RMB transaction, with an estimated 50% reduction in overall remittance costs. From the northeast to the southwest, from hundreds of millions to over a billion yuan, the currency bridge is moving from proof of concept toward large-scale implementation.

Technology never creates value out of thin air; it only dismantles walls that should have been torn down long ago.

1. The “relay race” of cross-border payments: a half-century tolerated efficiency black hole

To understand what this few-seconds remittance means, we first need to see the true face of traditional cross-border payments.

The current global cross-border payment system is dominated by the “correspondent banking model.” Simply put, funds are “relay transferred” between banks in different countries— the sending bank issues a remittance instruction to Correspondent Bank A, which then forwards it to Correspondent Bank B, and so on, until it reaches the receiving bank. Each leg requires a handover time, and each step incurs transit fees. The reason this model is called “correspondent banking” is because each participating bank acts as an agent for the remitter, and each agent adds to the cost.

Regarding the specific composition of cross-border payment costs, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) pointed out in relevant research reports that the multi-layer intermediary structure of the correspondent banking model is the main factor driving up fees. Different data sources estimate average costs differently— the World Bank’s long-term tracking shows an average cost of about 6% for global personal cross-border remittances, while the cost structure for B2B corporate cross-border payments is more complex, involving intermediary bank fees, foreign exchange spreads, compliance screening costs, and implicit costs of funds in transit. Regardless of the exact figures, one basic fact is clear: cross-border payments have long been a “high friction” process, with fund flow efficiency far below that of information flow.

What does this mean? For a manufacturing company with an annual cross-border settlement volume of 1 billion yuan, the explicit and implicit costs of just the payment process could amount to hundreds of millions of yuan. This is not a tax, nor raw material procurement; it is purely the “frictional loss” caused by funds moving between different accounts.

Behind the costs is also the price of time. Traditional cross-border remittances usually take 1 to 3 business days to settle. For outward-oriented industries like auto parts and electronics, where capital turnover is sensitive, a three-day delay means multiple risks—production lines may face shutdowns due to unpaid parts, exchange rate fluctuations may erode already slim profit margins during the wait, and order delivery certainty may be compromised. Time is never abstract; in cross-border payments, it is precisely measured in minutes of waiting and transfer costs.

This inefficiency is not the fault of any one party but a systemic flaw. Payment systems across countries differ significantly in working hours, technical standards, data formats, and privacy compliance requirements, causing repeated “waiting—verification—forwarding—waiting again” cycles during cross-border fund and data transmission. More intriguingly, this payment architecture, born in the 1970s based on telegraph message technology, remains the backbone of global trade today, even as mobile payments have penetrated every corner of life. The stark contrast between the world where you can buy coffee with a mobile scan and the world where it takes three days to receive overseas customer payments highlights a puzzling disconnection—one that is increasingly difficult to justify.

2. The “subtraction” of the currency bridge: from multi-layered agents to direct point-to-point

This disconnection is precisely what the multilateral CBDC bridge aims to bridge.

The mBridge project was initiated by the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China, jointly with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Central Bank of Thailand, and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates. According to data released by the BIS Innovation Hub, the core design concept of mBridge is to build a multilateral CBDC sharing platform using distributed ledger technology, enabling CBDCs from different jurisdictions to directly exchange and clear on the same platform. If the traditional correspondent banking model is a relay race, the currency bridge is about letting funds go directly from the origin to the destination. The initiator and recipient can “talk” directly on the platform, eliminating the need for multiple intermediary banks to pass the message step by step.

This “subtraction” brings three immediate changes. First is speed. The time for funds to arrive at Chongqing Branch’s recent transaction was compressed from 1–3 business days to just a few seconds. The Changchun Branch’s case also confirmed this efficiency leap—according to its disclosure, the remittance was completed in real time from initiation to receipt. Second is cost. Removing the layered charges of intermediaries significantly reduces overall remittance costs. The Changchun Branch’s post-implementation estimate shows a cost reduction of about 50%. Third is transparency. Distributed ledger technology ensures full traceability of the transaction process, with every movement of funds recorded immutably on the ledger, representing a fundamental upgrade for cross-border compliance management.

But the significance of the currency bridge goes far beyond “faster and cheaper.” A deeper transformation lies in its redefinition of cross-border payment governance. Under the traditional correspondent banking model, the nodes and influence are highly concentrated in a few international financial centers; the multilateral architecture of the currency bridge offers a more equitable space for rule-making among participants. According to previous disclosures from the Digital Currency Research Institute of the PBOC, the mBridge project has completed pilot verifications in multiple scenarios, covering international trade settlement, cross-border investment, and financing. In 2025 alone, cross-border transactions via mBridge in Chongqing exceeded 2.2 billion yuan. From pilot to actual deployment, the progress of digital renminbi in cross-border applications is clearly visible.

Of course, it must be acknowledged that the currency bridge is still in its early stages of promotion. The scope of supported currencies and jurisdictions is gradually expanding, and there is still a long way to go to fully participate in the global payment system. Meanwhile, the competitive landscape of cross-border payments is also evolving—SWIFT has been pushing its own innovations, and solutions like global stablecoins and tokenized deposits are being explored in multiple jurisdictions. The currency bridge faces not only technological maturity challenges but also a long-term race in ecosystem building. Innovation is never about instant rejection of the old system but about offering a non-compromising alternative.

3. The resonance of channels and currencies: why Chongqing?

To understand the value of the currency bridge, it must be linked to the real economic scenarios it serves. And this is precisely where the Chongqing case is most convincing.

As the core hub of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor, Chongqing is undergoing a profound outward-oriented economic transformation. According to data from the Chongqing Municipal Commerce Commission, in 2025, Chongqing’s import and export volume through the Western Land-Sea New Corridor reached 52 billion yuan, a 1.5-fold increase; its import and export to ASEAN was 132.65 billion yuan, up 12.6%, with ASEAN remaining Chongqing’s largest trading partner. The city’s advantageous industries such as automotive manufacturing, electronic information, and cross-border e-commerce are accelerating their outward expansion, demanding higher and higher cross-border settlement efficiency.

In this “channel economy” hub city, every delay in cross-border payments amplifies. Goods can be shipped from Chongqing to Southeast Asia within days, but funds often take the same or longer time to arrive—this “logistics outpaces capital flow” mismatch has become an invisible bottleneck constraining trade efficiency. When the physical speed surpasses the financial speed, the latter becomes the most fragile link in the entire system.

The value of the recent implementation by Industrial Bank’s Chongqing Branch lies precisely in addressing this pain point. Through the currency bridge, funds and goods can flow in a more synchronized manner, providing a safe and efficient payment channel for local industries like automotive and electronics to go global. This is not an isolated technical case but a deep coupling of financial infrastructure with national regional development strategies—while the Western Land-Sea New Corridor connects physical space, the currency bridge connects the realm of value. The overlay of these two channels creates a new dimension of inland opening.

Policy coordination is also accelerating. According to the 2026 work conference of the PBOC Chongqing Branch, the bank explicitly prioritized “steady development of digital renminbi,” integrating its pilot and application into key annual tasks. Meanwhile, the PBOC Yunnan Branch also listed “accelerating digital renminbi border trade scenarios” as a priority, actively serving and integrating into the construction of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor. From policy guidance to financial institution implementation, from infrastructure to actual business expansion, a policy network supporting cross-border digital renminbi applications is continuously being woven.

4. From efficiency to trust: the deeper logic of cross-border payment paradigm shift

If the previous discussion was about what the currency bridge “does,” the next question is: what does it “change”?

The essence of cross-border payments is not just the movement of funds but the flow of trust. The core logic of the traditional correspondent banking model can be summarized as “trust intermediary”—the trading parties do not trust each other directly but rely on a series of intermediary banks in different jurisdictions. Each correspondent bank acts as a trust guarantor and adds to the efficiency cost. Trust is never free; it costs either time, money, or both.

The paradigm shift brought by the currency bridge is that it moves the trust mechanism from “intermediary guarantee” to “technological consensus.” The immutability of distributed ledger technology and multi-party shared verification enable the trading parties to settle directly without multiple layers of intermediaries. This is not a rejection of trust but an upgrade of the trust carrier—like the evolution from paper contracts to electronic agreements, the form of trust changes, but the strength of trust does not diminish—in fact, it becomes more reliable thanks to technological safeguards.

This shift’s profound impact on cross-border trade is just beginning to emerge. When payment times shrink from “days” to “seconds,” the rhythm of corporate capital turnover will undergo a structural change. Less capital tied up means higher capital efficiency; shorter settlement cycles mean lower exchange rate risk exposure. Every tiny efficiency gain amplifies into significant cost savings at the macroeconomic level.

Meanwhile, the full traceability of the currency bridge also opens new possibilities for regulatory technology (RegTech). Increased transparency of cross-border fund flows helps regulators more precisely identify suspicious transactions and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing risks, establishing a more balanced point between efficiency and security. This is crucial for high-level financial openness—openness does not mean relaxing regulation but achieving regulatory goals more intelligently and precisely. Of course, further promotion of the currency bridge still faces deep challenges, including but not limited to cross-jurisdictional regulatory coordination, data sovereignty and privacy rules, and the alignment of foreign exchange policies across legal domains. Solving these issues requires not just technology but more complex international cooperation and institutional innovation.

Conclusion

From 1 to 3 days to just seconds, from multi-layered agents to direct point-to-point, what the Chongqing branch of Industrial Bank has achieved with this cross-border remittance is not just a transfer of funds across borders.

It proves— that the cross-border application of digital renminbi is no longer confined to theoretical scenarios or closed pilot projects but has the practical capacity to serve real economic entities. It demonstrates—a coupling—precisely aligning financial technology innovation with national openness strategies, giving technology a more solid scene-based foundation. It also questions the old order’s institutional nature—those long-accepted inefficiencies under the guise of “industry norms” are not immutable.

The transformation of cross-border payments rarely announces itself with a bang. More often, it hides in the seconds shortened at arrival, in the calm of corporate finance staff no longer needing to refresh account balances repeatedly, in the payments that are no longer sliced repeatedly by intermediary fees.

When capital flow begins to catch up with logistics speed, the logic of global trade efficiency is quietly being rewritten.

The channel is already underfoot.

About 【RWA Research Institute】

RWA Research Institute was jointly initiated by several senior financiers, Web3 practitioners, industry innovators, and technical experts. It was officially launched in Hong Kong on June 25, 2024, under the full name: RWA Research Institute, abbreviated as RWARI.

As one of the earliest specialized RWA research institutions globally, RWARI focuses on the field of Real World Assets (RWA), dedicated to promoting the integration of traditional financial assets with blockchain technology. Through in-depth research and practical exploration, the institute provides innovative solutions for investors and enterprises, facilitating the digitization and tokenization of physical assets, and building bridges between traditional finance and digital assets.

The core mission of RWARI is to combine policy research, standard setting, and ecosystem co-creation to assist enterprises in digital asset transformation, providing technological support and strategic coordination for compliant global development. In the future, the institute will deepen the integration of digital technology with the real economy, co-host global industry summits with international organizations, explore multi-field application scenarios, and inject new momentum into high-quality globalization.

In May 2025, RWARI, together with China Search, China Electric Digital Scene Technology Research Institute, and other authoritative organizations, initiated the “China RWA Industry Think Tank,” focusing on the global compliant development of asset digitization. The think tank empowers the real economy through three core directions: first, leading the drafting of “RWA Project Evaluation Standards” and other international cooperation norms; second, building a “digital service chain” of “asset on-chain—cross-border circulation—global trading,” integrating blockchain and AI technologies; third, establishing cross-border compliant channels with Hong Kong and Shenzhen as hubs, promoting green finance and cross-border investment and financing innovation. Additionally, leveraging the “dual-chain integration architecture”—a national-level alliance chain and cross-chain protocols—strengthens technological independence and data security, deepening cross-border cooperation and compliance governance.