7-Second Myth: China’s e-RMB Really Means for the Dollar Order

Despite rising interest in cross-border CBDC platforms like mBridge, experts caution that true integration across banks and corporates will take years, with de-dollarization likely to be gradual and sector-specific.

By P SESH KUMAR

New Delhi, October 31, 2025 — A viral claim says the People’s Bank of China just “fully connected” the digital renminbi (RMB) to 10 ASEAN and six Middle-East countries, that 38% of world trade will now bypass SWIFT, and that cross-border payments via a China-built blockchain clear in seven seconds at 98% lower cost-ushering in a “Digital RMB moment.”

China has indeed built serious plumbing—the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) for RMB messaging/settlement and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)-backed Project mBridge for multi-CBDC trials—and RMB usage in trade and payments has been rising. But there is no authoritative evidence of a People’s Bank of China (PBoC) decree “fully connecting” e-RMB across those blocs, nor that a third of world trade is set to bypass Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

The latter-SWIFT itself is understood to be now delivering many cross-border payments within minutes, the US dollar still supposedly accounts for around 58% of global Foreign Exchange (FX) reserves, and RMB’s share of global payment value oscillates in the low-single digits. The story here is certainly not an overnight dethroning of the dollar; it would appear to be a steady, multi-year build-out of parallel rails that could matter in specific corridors, especially where policy and commodities trade align-with big governance and adoption hurdles still to solve.

The backdrop: two Chinese rails and one global benchmark

Experts say that China’s cross-border architecture has two distinct layers. First, CIPS, launched in 2015, provides RMB clearing and messaging. It is reported to have grown to hundreds of direct and indirect participants in over 180 countries, but the majority of its messages still ride on SWIFT’s pipes; CIPS is not a like-for-like global replacement. Second, Project mBridge, co-developed by the BIS Innovation Hub with the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE (Saudi Arabia joined in 2024), is an experimental “multi-CBDC” platform that may have reached a minimum viable product stage in 2024-useful progress, but not a production, globe-spanning network.

In late 2024 the BIS said the project could continue without its day-to-day involvement and was not yet commercially mature-again, far from a full rollout.

What these facts mean is simple: China is building credible alternative rails for some RMB transactions and piloting CBDC settlement with a handful of partners. That is meaningful, but it is not evidence that “38% of world trade” will imminently bypass SWIFT.

The claims, stress-tested

The headline assertion-that the PBoC “suddenly announced” full e-RMB cross-border connection across ten ASEAN and six Middle-East countries-does not appear in any official PBoC communiqué, BIS notice, or major wire service report. Versions of the claim circulate on social media, blogs and LinkedIn reposts, but lack primary-source corroboration. By contrast, official and Tier-1 sources document only pilots, MVP-stage platforms, and corridor-specific tests. Treat the “full connection” line as unverified.

The “seven-second, 98% cheaper” framing also reads like marketing. mBridge prototypes do demonstrate near-instant settlement in controlled trials, but there is no broad, audited data showing average production-scale cross-border payments now settle in seven seconds with 98% fee reductions.

Meanwhile, SWIFT GPI—the very system allegedly being “bypassed”—already credits roughly 60% of payments within 30 minutes and almost all within 24 hours, and in some instant-payment linkages has recorded sub-minute end-to-end times. The baseline the hype compares against is outdated.

“Thailand completed the first oil settlement with digital RMB” and “23 central banks joined the digital currency bridge” are likewise repeated in low-quality outlets; authoritative confirmation is thin. What is well-documented: Saudi Arabia joined mBridge in June 2024, adding potential commodity-trade heft to the trials. That is a real directional signal, but still short of the sweeping transition the headline describes.

The statement that “87% of countries have adapted to the digital RMB system” and that cross-border e-RMB payments have topped $1.2 trillion also lacks credible sourcing. BIS’s 2024 survey found about 91% of central banks exploring some CBDC concept (retail or wholesale)-that statistic is often misquoted as “countries ready for China’s e-RMB,” which it is not. Exploration does not mean interconnection to a specific foreign CBDC.

What’s actually changing: RMB rails are getting denser, not dominant

Again, international trade and markets’ watchers say that three measurable trends matter. First, RMB usage in cross-border transactions has climbed: PBoC data show total cross-border RMB receipts and payments around RMB 64 trillion in 2024, up roughly 23% year-on-year; some research places the RMB at around 3–4% of SWIFT-tracked payments by value at various points in 2024–2025, at times rising to fourth place but more recently around sixth with around 2.9%. Growth is real; dominance is not yet.

Second, regionalization is deepening. China has promoted local-currency settlement with ASEAN, expanded swap lines and RMB liquidity centres, and pushed pilots in Gulf energy corridors via mBridge. Those moves reduce friction where counterparties are willing to hold RMB, but they do not automatically convert global commodity pricing or hedging infrastructure.

Third, CIPS vs SWIFT is badly misunderstood. CIPS can settle RMB and offers a parallel messaging channel, but most CIPS traffic still uses SWIFT messages because of installed infrastructure abroad. SWIFT itself is not a settlement system; it is the dominant messaging backbone. Any claim that “SWIFT is bypassed” at 38% of world trade conflates messaging with settlement and overstates current RMB uptake.

Why the hype resonates: sanctions risk and “just in case” finance

Where the digital RMB and mBridge do bite strategically is sanctions’ resilience and corridor bargaining power. After Russia-related restrictions showed how financial messaging can be weaponized, countries exposed to US/EU sanctions risk have clear incentives to test alternative rails. A maturing mBridge that settles PVP FX in real time on DLT, plus CIPS for RMB, gives policymakers options in specific trades or crisis scenarios-especially where China is the primary buyer or contractor (energy, minerals, Belt and Road projects). That could be a plausible medium-term mosaic, not an overnight reset.

Practical constraints: the plumbing that decides who wins

Convertibility and hedging. One must remember that the RMB is not fully convertible on the capital account. Large commodity traders and treasurers need deep, transparent hedging markets, repo, and collateral mobility. The dollar’s advantage, we all know, is institutional depth, not raw technology. IMF’s Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) data still show the dollar at around 58% of global FX reserves; RMB sits near 2–3%. That reserve math anchors the cheapest funding and the deepest derivative stacks.

Governance and Compliance

Experts underline that mBridge requires multi-sovereign rules on Anti- money laundering/Countering financing terrorism (AML/CFT), privacy, revocation, and dispute resolution. BIS has been explicit that the platform is not yet commercially mature. Scaling from Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to production involves liability frameworks, operational Service Level Agreements (SLA), and supervisory oversight across central banks-hard problems that take years, not press cycles, to solve.

Incumbent improvement. SWIFT’s GPI and its linkages to domestic instant-payment systems have already crushed much of the “days to clear” problem, with many payments completed in minutes and a growing set under one minute. It can be said that any challenger must beat not yesterday’s SWIFT, but today’s rapidly modernising stack.

Adoption Reality

Even enthusiastic central-bank surveys measure intent. Turning that into enterprise integration across thousands of banks, corporates, ERPs, and compliance stacks is a multi-year grind. The BIS’s own 2024-25 documentation shows interest levels high but issuance timelines staggered, and in some quarters official enthusiasm has cooled.

Implications if the rails keep maturing

If China continues to densify RMB corridors, expands usable onshore/offshore hedging, and mBridge graduates to production with a half-dozen energy and manufacturing hubs, one can expect selective de-dollarization at the margin: more RMB-priced contracts in Asia-Gulf routes, cross-border working-capital in RMB for Chinese value chains, and sanction-resilient niches. This could chip away at dollar share in trade invoicing faster than in reserves, funding, or global asset pricing, where the dollar’s network effects and legal infrastructure remain entrenched. In short: a multipolar plumbing story, not a monolithic flip.

How to read the next headlines

We need to treat “full connection” announcements with caution unless they carry official BIS, PBoC or partner-central-bank documentation. The signal to watch is not viral speed claims but three slow variables: (a) documented mBridge go-live milestones and which central banks permit production volumes; (b) RMB’s share of global payments and trade finance in SWIFT trackers and bank research; and (c) reserve allocation trends in IMF COFER. If all three trend up together while SWIFT GPI keeps accelerating, we will be watching genuine competition between rails, not a single-shot dethronement.

(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)

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