The Central Bank of Saudi Arabia (SAMA) and the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) classified Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) and blockchains as “favorable tools” for the evolution of banking. Both powers reached this conclusion after completing proofs of concept for an indigenous cross-border payment system, the study of which allowed them to discover that systems based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) can improve financial transactions between nations in a digital context.
Called Project Aber (Cross Borders in Arabic), the year-long pilot study aimed to test the feasibility of a shared CBDC among nations. The results were published in an official report in which they describe the experience as “a step forward in the development of digital currencies.”
The tests covered international agreements between CBUAE and SAMA for the issuance of a joint currency and agreements between commercial banks of the two countries. For it It was based on the private network enabled by Hyperledger Fabric technology. It also considered R3’s Corda DLT system and the Quorum network, a project initially developed by the US bank JP Morgan on Ethereum.
