Reclaiming monetary sovereignty: CBDCs, infrastructural power, and the reconfiguration of the international monetary system Open Access

The rapid digitalisation of money and the diffusion of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) have intensified debates about the future of the international monetary system (IMS). Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) have emerged at the forefront of these transformations: as of January 2026, 137 countries and currency unions – representing 98% of global GDP – are exploring some form of CBDC, ranging from preliminary research to fully operational deployments (Atlantic Council, 2026). Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent G7 international sanctions, the number of cross-border CBDC projects has more than doubled (Atlantic Council, 2026). While national motivations differ, CBDCs share a common feature: they are liabilities of central banks that combine legal recognition as sovereign money ^[1] with the potential to reshape the infrastructure of cross-border payments.

The international implications of these developments are profound. At stake is not merely the technical efficiency of cross-border transactions; the underlying issue concerns the degree of monetary sovereignty that states are able to exercise within the IMS. In this article, we focus on a critical, yet often overlooked, component of this architecture: the financial infrastructures that govern payments and money transfers across jurisdictions. In the current institutional design, three critical infrastructures underpin global transactions: the messaging system provided by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) based in Brussels, the Clearing House Interbank Payments System (CHIPS), and the Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) system, both in New York. These are managed by privately led, Western-centric institutions, each governed by distinct frameworks, that serve as standard-setters in determining how, by whom and under what conditions cross-currency transactions occur. They perform an international public function by underpinning financial flows and cross-border payments, which are largely denominated in a limited set of national currencies – most prominently, the US dollar.

This article poses two interrelated questions. How do CBDCs – particularly multi-CBDC platforms – redefine monetary sovereignty as an infrastructural practice, shifting authority from private-led to more state-driven payment systems? To what extent does this infrastructural reconfiguration redistribute power relations within the IMS, long anchored in US dollar dominance and its supporting infrastructures?

A literature spanning international macroeconomics and international political economy shows that the privileged position of the US dollar structures global financial cycles (Rey, 2015; IMF, 2025) and underpins a hierarchical international monetary system (Mehrling, 2013) characterised by asymmetries in monetary power among states (Strange, 1971; Cohen, 1998, 2015; Helleiner, 2008; Mehrling, 2013; Norrlof, 2014; Rey, 2015; Fritz, de Paula and Prates, 2018,Murau et al., 2020; Braun et al., 2021; Murau et al., 2022; Murau and Klooster, 2023; Jiang, 2024; Tzouvala, 2025; IMF, 2025). Yet focusing on currencies alone does not reveal the institutional and material foundations of this hierarchy. Financial infrastructures are not neutral conduits but sites where geopolitical authority is exercised, obstructed and reconfigured (Bernards and Campbell-Verduyn, 2019; Petry, 2020; de Goede, 2021; de Goede and Westermeier, 2022; Brandl and Dieterich, 2023; Westermeier et al., 2025). Infrastructures are geopolitical tools, embedding hierarchies into routine financial operations while also serving as instruments of coercion through sanctions – an expression of ‘weaponised interdependence’ in money and payments (Farrell and Abraham, 2021; Fishman, 2025; Lastra, 2025; Tzouvala, 2025).

Building on the scholarship on infrastructural geopolitics (de Goede and Westermeier, 2022; Westermeier et al., 2025), we take a further step by arguing that infrastructures are not only arenas of geopolitical contestation but constitutive of monetary sovereignty itself. Sovereignty in monetary affairs has traditionally been conceived in international law as the issuance of currency; it has progressively come to encompass the governance of payment systems and the oversight of banking and financial flows as monetary systems have evolved (Mann, 1971; Lastra, 2015). In practice, it is relational and uneven: a few states extend monetary authority far beyond their borders, while most remain structurally dependent (Treves, 2000; Pistor, 2017; Murau et al., 2020; Ferreira-Lima, 2022; Murau and Klooster, 2023). The centrality of the US dollar and its supporting infrastructures illustrates this dynamic, embedding hierarchy and asymmetry into the very operation of the IMS. From our perspective, monetary sovereignty should be understood as infrastructural: grounded not only in the legal prerogative to issue currency, set exchange rates or oversee banking institutions, but also in the technological systems, governance arrangements and standards that enable money to circulate – nationally and, crucially, internationally.

CBDCs, and especially multi-CBDC platforms, recast monetary sovereignty as an infrastructural practice: by embedding public authority into the very code, smart contracts and governance rules of payment systems, they may shift power from private-led networks (such as SWIFT, CHIPS and CLS) to state-driven architectures. This infrastructural reorientation creates new opportunities for states to reassert control over cross-border transactions and, potentially, to shield themselves from the extraterritorial effects of economic sanctions. Yet these initiatives reconfigure rather than replace the current IMS architecture: while CBDC platforms may advance new technical and legal means to embed sovereignty in payment infrastructures, structural constraints – above all the entrenched liquidity and benchmark role of the US dollar, uneven technological capacities and divergent regulatory regimes – continue to limit their transformative reach.

To explore these geopolitical dynamics, the article employs a research method centred on the examination of two policy initiatives on cross-border transactions: the mBridge project and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI). The mBridge project, previously supported by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, stands as the most advanced experiment in multi-CBDC infrastructure, combining broad institutional outreach with the settlement of real-value transactions and a governance framework that embeds central banks at the core of cross-border payment architecture. Through their technological design, multi-CBDC platforms can potentially bypass the core functions historically performed by the infrastructure triad of global payments – namely, financial messaging, settlement and currency exchange. Methodologically, mBridge functions as a “most-likely” case: if CBDCs can reconfigure monetary sovereignty through infrastructures, this is where the effects are most visible. To complement this, we also consider the BCBPI, an initiative that remains embryonic in technical terms and largely symbolic in practice. Yet, it is nonetheless instructive in revealing the geopolitical ambitions that are projected onto emerging payment infrastructures. Taken together, the two cases allow us to examine both the material feasibility and the symbolic projection of infrastructural aspect of monetary sovereignty, capturing how CBDCs operate simultaneously as technological experiments and geopolitical instruments.

The article makes two contributions. Firstly, it reconceptualises monetary sovereignty as inherently infrastructural: in its external dimension, sovereignty over money depends on control of the systems through which cross-border settlements are executed. Secondly, it shows that multi-CBDC platforms, such as the mBridge, in contrast with current US dollar-led, private-based infrastructures, place public authorities at the core of payment infrastructures, and represent efforts to reclaim sovereignty from dominant Western-centric entities.

The article proceeds as follows. The next section situates monetary sovereignty in relation to the infrastructures that underpin the IMS, highlighting how private-led systems entrench US dollar dominance. We then examine the technical and political dimensions of CBDCs through the case of mBridge and the nascent BRICS initiative, showing how they crystallise distinct approaches to embedding sovereignty within cross-border payment infrastructures. The conclusion assesses the extent to which multi-CBDC platforms can reconfigure the balance between private and public infrastructures, arguing that although they may enhance states’ sovereignty in cross-border payments, their transformative potential is constrained by persistent obstacles.

The IMS consists of an institutional framework that govern monetary interactions between States, governmental bodies, intergovernmental entities and different types of economic actors. It includes a set of internationally agreed norms, rules and practices designed to foster cooperation in monetary affairs and ensure global stability. The IMS supports and determines how global payments are settled, how exchange rates are managed, and how capital is transferred across different jurisdictions. A payment system, an integral component of the IMS, is a ‘set of instruments, procedures and rules for the transfer of funds between or among participants’ and, according to the BIS, it includes ‘the participants and the entity operating the arrangement’ ^[2].

Another defining institutional characteristic of the IMS is the hybrid nature of money (Kapadia, 2023; Murau and Klooster, 2023; Mehrling, 2013; Pistor, 2017) – i.e. money is issued by public authorities (i.e., central banks) and extensively created by private financial institutions. This dual structure is embedded in the standards and practices that underpin the system. The infrastructure supporting monetary transactions across borders – encompassing payment messaging, clearing and settlement – is largely defined and operated by private-governed financial entities.

Within the IMS, monetary sovereignty represents a core dimension of state authority. Recognised in public international law as an essential attribute of sovereignty, ^[3] it extends beyond the issuance and regulation of national currency and the authority to define legal tender within a jurisdiction (Mann, 1971). It also encompasses the oversight of the banking sector, the governance of payment systems and the management of the money supply together with the setting of interest rates (Lastra, 2015, p. 19). It is not a unitary or indivisible concept; it comprises both internal and external dimensions (Proctor, 2012, p. 807), encompassing, on the one hand, the authority exercised within a jurisdiction, and, on the other hand, the capacity of a state to project that authority beyond its borders through participation in, and influence over, international monetary and financial arrangements.

Monetary autonomy and monetary sovereignty are analytically distinct concepts. Monetary sovereignty denotes the legal–institutional authority of the state to determine its own monetary regime. As a status-based attribute rooted in public law, sovereignty may be formally delegated, yet retained even when monetary autonomy is substantially eroded. Autonomy refers to the effective capacity of states and their central banks to pursue policy objectives and varies in degree according to structural and international constraints.

Some authors argue that monetary sovereignty itself, rather than autonomy, has diminished or faced constraints in recent decades, notably in the international arena (Treves, 2000; Zimmerman 2013; Lastra, 2015; Ferreira-Lima, 2022; Murau and Klooster, 2023). Part of this erosion results from explicit and consensual legal choices, whereby states formally transfer or pool monetary sovereign competences, as in the case of the European Union. Other constraints are said to stem from structural transformations associated with globalisation, evolving information infrastructures, and technological change in finance, which may circumscribe states’ authority over money beyond their territory. Sovereignty may also be weakened in crisis situations, especially in emerging and developing economies, where recourse to IMF financial assistance entails conditionality that can formally limit sovereign discretion over monetary and fiscal governance (Copelovitch, 2010; Lastra, 2015; Duran, 2018).

The rise in cross-border capital movements and the widespread adoption of the US dollar as an international currency are illustrative of economic forces influencing the monetary sovereignty of states, particularly those countries unable to issue a currency that can be traded outside their own jurisdictions. Beyond territorial governance, control over money and finance fundamentally determines the actual sovereignty of a state at global levels (Pistor, 2017).

While countries maintain legal authority over the issuance of their own currency within borders, a select few privileged states enjoy the political power to extend their monetary sovereignty beyond their jurisdictions. In this sense, monetary power refers to the capacity of a state to shape the monetary choices, constraints and outcomes of others, both directly and indirectly, across domestic and international settings. It operates at the intersection of monetary autonomy and monetary sovereignty, as it is exercised when one state’s effective control over monetary conditions translates into influence over another state’s policy space or legal authority.

It is precisely through the exercise of such monetary power that losses of monetary autonomy may evolve into losses of monetary sovereignty: constraints initially affecting policy effectiveness can, under sustained external influence, harden into durable legal, institutional or contractual commitments that reallocate or pre-empt decision-making authority. In analytical terms, autonomy becomes sovereignty-relevant once limits on effective policy action are no longer merely contingent or reversible but instead restructure the locus of authority over money. Murau and Klooster (2023) highlights how the traditional Westphalian conception of monetary sovereignty rests on an antiquated understanding of the IMS. Currency competition, the enduring dominance of the US dollar as international money, and the expanding effects of global payment infrastructures challenge the notion of states as equal constitutive building blocks within the IMS (Braun et al., 2021; Murau et al., 2020).

These structural imbalances reveal that monetary power within the IMS is shaped by state authority as well as by the financial practices, infrastructures and standards that enable currencies to be used internationally. The adoption of a currency as an international means of payment goes beyond its mere economic use; it depends on the dissemination and acceptance of underlying technologies and their correspondent standards (Deng, 2023). It also relies on the depth and development and complexity of its financial system, its broad accessibility and liquidity, and appealing returns. Hegemonic dispositions can manifest through payment systems, which goes beyond its role as a passive apparatus for the settlement of transactions in financial markets.

When structural conditions systematically deprive states of meaningful monetary choice, the formal retention of authority conceals a substantive displacement of effective control. The erosion of autonomy thus translates into a weakening of sovereignty when effectiveness deficits are stabilised through institutions, infrastructures or legal rules that bind future monetary action. This transformation marks the point at which economic constraints cease to operate as external pressure and instead constitute a reconfiguration of monetary sovereignty itself.

Here is how monetary sovereignty connects with infrastructural geopolitics: the USA’s extraterritorial monetary power stems not only from the international role of its currency, but also from the infrastructures in which it is entrenched, operating under US jurisdiction. Messaging systems, settlement platforms and financial utilities structure the monetary options available to other states by defining the technological standards and institutional architecture of cross-border transactions. Through this channel, constraints initially affecting external monetary autonomy may harden into durable limitations on monetary sovereignty, as dependence on these infrastructures restructures the locus of monetary authority beyond the territorial state.

Crucially, the concentration of this infrastructural power remains in the hands of a few dominant private actors – a pattern that no technology has yet meaningfully disrupted (Brandl and Dieterich, 2023). Although central banks and international organisations have voiced concern over this private-sector dominance, they have not sought to replace private-led initiatives (Schenk, 2023). Their role has instead centred on oversight and coordination – exemplified by the establishment of the Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems, later renamed the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures within the BIS – while operational control has continued to rest with private actors.

The dominance of the US dollar – and, with it, the extraterritorial extension of US monetary sovereignty – rests on three core infrastructural pillars: the SWIFT messaging system, CHIPS and CLS. These three infrastructures jointly sustain the backbone of the IMS by covering its essential dimensions: SWIFT provides the global communication layer through standardised financial messaging; CHIPS functions as the principal US dollar clearinghouse for large-value cross-border payments; and CLS ensures final settlement in foreign exchange markets. Other payment infrastructures, e.g. Fedwire in the US or T2 in Europe, are central to their respective jurisdictions but remain domestic or regional in scope and thus do not exercise the same global reach.

SWIFT is legally structured as a private association, a cooperative company under Belgian law, representing approximately 2,400 shareholders from across the world, which characterises itself as a ‘backbone of global financial communication’ aimed at facilitating economic transactions ^[4]. Founded in 1973 and operational since 1977, it replaced the Telex system with a standardized messaging network, currently used by over 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries ^[5]. SWIFT acts as a standard-setter in messaging traffic, thereby establishing the protocols and frameworks within which international financial communications operate (de Goede, 2021). Far from a passive organisation, the infrastructural services have shaped “its own environment rather than simply responding to it” (Scott and Zachariadis, 2014, p. 153). Despite its claims of being a “neutral utility”, ^[6]SWIFT has acted in alignment with geopolitical directives; since 2012, under international sanctions regimes, it has disconnected Iranian, Russian and Belarusian entities from its network, illustrating its role as a key instrument of extraterritorial monetary power ^[7].

In addition to SWIFT, two other key infrastructural actors – CHIPS and CLS – play a key role in sustaining the broader architecture of cross-border payments. The New York Clearing House is a banking association with origins dating back to 1853, owned collectively by 22 of the world’s largest commercial banks. Its sister company, the Clearing House Payments Company LLC, operates the CHIPS, currently serving 41 direct participants ^[8]. It processes an average of US$1.8tn in domestic and international payments each day; remarkably, 95% of these transactions involve the US dollar leg of cross-border fund transfers – either originating from or destined for another country (CHIPS, 2024). It operates as a real-time, multilateral netting system that reduces liquidity requirements, functioning alongside its public-sector counterpart, the Fedwire system. CHIPS reinforces the centrality of New York as a hub for international US dollar settlements.

Complementing this architecture is CLS, a financial market infrastructure launched in 2002 to mitigate settlement risk in the foreign exchange market. This system settles an average of US$7tn daily and processes transactions in 18 elegible currencies ^[9]. Its network comprises more than 70 direct members – including monetary authorities and commercial banks – and over 35,000 indirect participants worldwide. CLS addresses settlement risk through the implementation of a payment-versus-payment (PvP) mechanism, adapted from the delivery-versus-payment (DvP) model used in securities markets, ensuring that each counterparty pays only upon simultaneous receipt of the corresponding currency (Bronner, 2002). In 2014, the CLS postponed the inclusion of the Russian Ruble in its list of eligible currencies (Maslov, 2021), highlighting its geopolitical significance. Access to the CLS is critical for currency convertibility: exclusion typically prevents direct settlement and often necessitates routing transactions through the US dollar as an intermediary.

SWIFT, CLS and CHIPS are infrastructural providers that exercise structural power by delineating the ‘rules of the game.’ They shape the operational frameworks for private actors and public entities, thus affecting the exercise of monetary sovereignty by other states (Petry, 2020). They are not politically neutral; they define the contours of governance, becomes part of geopolitical action and the political settings, not only economic transactions (Bernards and Campbell-Verduyn, 2019).

The preceding section showed how the IMS relies on three infrastructural actors – SWIFT, CHIPS and CLS – that are privately governed, Western-centric and intimately tied to the dominance of the US dollar. Their technological standards and institutional arrangements embed geopolitical power into the architecture of cross-border payments, constraining the monetary sovereignty of other states. Against this backdrop, central banks have begun to explore alternative infrastructures that might reposition states at the centre of international settlement.

This section examines the role of DLT-based, multi-CBDC platforms in reshaping payment infrastructures by focusing on one emblematic initiative: the mBridge ^[9]. We focus on this project as our primary case because it is the most advanced experiment in developing a multi-CBDC infrastructure for wholesale cross-border transactions, supported by publicly available BIS reports and led by a non-Western coalition of central banks. The project has moved beyond proof-of-concept to real-value transactions, contractual governance frameworks and interoperability tests, making it the clearest empirical site to examine how sovereignty is understood by geopolitical actors and translated into technological and legal architectures.

To capture the explicitly political dimension of these innovations, we complement this with the BRICS' BCBPI. While technically underdeveloped, it is analytically valuable as a contrasting case that highlights the symbolic and geopolitical uses of CBDC infrastructures. The BRICS initiative emerged after mBridge and frames digital currencies as instruments of bloc-wide monetary autonomy from Western-led infrastructures.

Methodologically, examining mBridge and BCBPI together reflects a specific case design: the former shows the institutional and technological feasibility of embedding monetary sovereignty into cross-border systems, whereas BCBPI illustrates how a similar infrastructural template can be mobilised less for functional integration than for geopolitical positioning and symbolic signalling. This combination allows us to address both the material and symbolic dimensions of infrastructural sovereignty, situating CBDCs at the intersection of technological experimentation and geopolitical contestation.

Political momentum for alternative cross-border payment systems accelerated in 2020, when G20 Finance Ministers endorsed a comprehensive roadmap to reform the international payments landscape (FSB, 2020). Since its establishment in 2019, the BIS Innovation Hub ^[10] has been instrumental in advancing CBDC initiatives. Building on projects dating back to 2015, the Hub has leveraged emerging technologies to provide an institutional framework for central bank cooperation on monetary innovation, enabling the exchange of ‘multiple currencies within a single system’ (Bech et al., 2022). A key policy aim of cross-border projects has been to promote interoperability among monetary systems and to expand access to payment infrastructures for non-resident financial institutions (BIS, 2015, 2020; 2021, 2022a; 2022b, 2022c, 2023a, 2023b).

A CBDC is a digital form of central bank money, representing a direct claim on the central bank and denominated in the national currency. As a token, it can be securely transferred and settled on DLT-based platforms. Unlike traditional centralised accounting ledgers, decentralised databases such as blockchain are distributed across numerous nodes or locations. Each node records and shares identical copies of financial transactions or data entries, holding the potential to reduce reliance on intermediaries.

DLT platforms function as payment infrastructures that leverage specific technological features such as atomic settlements, enabling instant and conditional exchange of two assets or currencies. This ensures simultaneous exchange of assets, reducing the risk that one party performs while the other defaults in PvP or DvP transactions.

Unlike cash or traditional bank money, tokens are programmable (Huber, 2023; Lavayssière and Zhang, 2024). The parties in a transaction can codify smart contracts, i.e. self-executing agreements coded when predefined events take place (De Filippi and Wright, 2019). It can be connected to a wide range of predetermined conditions or economic events (Seidemann, 2021; Bundesbank, 2020). This feature represents a financial innovation of equal significance to the historical developments of the double-entry accounting system.

In cross-border transactions, DLT-based tokens can integrate payment messaging and value transfer, unlike traditional infrastructures, where communication (SWIFT) and settlement – often in US dollars via systems such as CHIPS and CLS – remain institutionally separate. This technological capability results in reduced intermediaries, facilitating peer-to-peer transfers and expediting transaction settlement. Furthermore, CBDCs possess a legal attribute in monetary law known as legal tender, compelling the debtor to accept them as the ultimate means of payment (Skinner, 2023).They can offer enhanced security by eliminating solvency risks, positioning them as a strategic form of central bank money (Kumhof et al., 2020) in an alternative infrastructure.

One of the most significant policy initiatives in this field is the mBridge project. Originally, and prior to the BIS Innovation Hub’s involvement, mBridge began in 2019 as ‘Project Inthanon-LionRock,’ a joint initiative led by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the Bank of Thailand (BIS, 2021). In its actual configuration, mBridge brings together the HKMA with the central banks of China, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (BIS 2023a), and was expanded in 2024 to include the Saudi Central Bank. The project is notable for its broad institutional outreach: within the Hub, in 2024, it counted over 31 observers across all continents, including central banks from advanced, emerging, and developing economies, alongside international organisations such as the IMF, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank (BIS, 2024). While decision-making authority remains concentrated within the core group of central banks, observers are allowed to participate in pilot tests, provide feedback and follow the project’s evolution. The BIS described the rationale for their inclusion as an effort ‘to maximise the value [of the project] to the central bank community and project transparency’ (BIS, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, p. 9).

Official project documentation situates mBridge within a broader policy concern: that emerging market and developing economies face disproportionate difficulties in cross-border payments. According to the BIS, the mBridge has the potential ‘to alleviate many of the […] challenges in international payments, extend Payment versus Payment protection to currencies beyond those covered by existing systems and support the use of local currencies in cross-border settlement’ (BIS, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, p. 11, emphasis added).

Since the global financial crisis, the contraction of correspondent banking networks has restricted their access to the global financial system (BIS, 2022a, 2022b, 2022c, p. 11). At the same time, foreign-exchange settlement risks have increased, partly because existing infrastructures “such as CLS” do not support most emerging markets and developing economies’ currencies, despite their rising share in global trade volumes (BIS, 2022a, 2022b, p. 11, emphasis added).

Against this backdrop, mBridge stresses the importance of enabling the use of local currencies in international trade and settlement, framing this not only as an efficiency gain but also as a matter of “safeguarding the currency sovereignty and monetary and financial stability of each jurisdiction” (BIS 2023a, p. 2, emphasis added). The project has articulated the policy ambition of evolving into a production-ready network that could “serve the broader central banking community as a public good through open-sourcing” (BIS, 2021, p. 8). This vision seems to reflect a dual aspiration: to uphold monetary sovereignty for participating jurisdictions while simultaneously positioning mBridge as a public infrastructure accessible beyond its founding members.

Different from other initiatives within the Hub, mBridge achieved the direct settlement of real-value transactions. It involved private banks to conduct transactions on behalf of corporate clients. Participants engaged in peer-to-peer transactions using CBDCs across various jurisdictions. The platform allowed the execution of three types of transactions: (1) issuance and redemption of CBDCs; (2) cross-border payments between banks using CBDCs; and (3) cross-border PvP transactions between banks using CBDCs. The single platform enabled both local and foreign regulated institutions to directly hold CBDCs issued by central banks involved in the project, irrespective of their jurisdiction. It was built upon the connectivity between the payee’s and payer’s local banks, enabling interoperability with participants’ domestic payment systems.

For the purposes of the project, a native blockchain infrastructure was developed: a permissioned platform known as the mBridge ledger (mBL) (BIS 2023a). At a 2023 conference hosted by a European think tank, a Hub advisor and solution architect explained that the DLT protocol underpinning the customisation of the mBL was designed by the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, thereby constituting intellectual property owned by the Chinese central bank ^[11].

In terms of governance framework, mBridge comprises a set of legal standards collectively defined by monetary authorities. The ‘mBridge Platform Terms’ constitute a binding contractual framework between the platform administrator (i.e. the Steering Committee), the participating central banks and financial institutions within their jurisdictions (BIS 2023a). The Steering Committee – comprising the Innovation Hub in Hong Kong and the participating monetary authorities – holds decision-making and voting rights and jointly oversees the design and governance of the platform. This contractual framework outlines access, usage and settlement conditions for CBDC transactions, specifying the circumstances under which a transaction achieves contractual finality – defined as the point at which a transaction becomes irreversible, unconditional and legally binding. The governance framework includes jurisdiction- and CBDC-specific terms that cover issuance and redemption conditions (following rules established by each central bank for its own CBDC), as well as a contractual instrument detailing specific rights for CBDC holders provided by the participating central bank (BIS 2023a).

In this multi-CBDC platform, central banks and private financial institutions collaborate, albeit with distinct roles, with the former maintaining governing role in key functions within the payment structure. Within the mBridge framework, payment and financial institutions can conduct peer-to-peer payments and settlement activities, but ultimate authority over governance and transaction finality remains concentrated in the hands of central banks. This authority is operationalised through the platform’s customised Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus mechanism (BIS 2023a). Central banks act as validator nodes, actively participating in the consensus protocol to ensure agreement on transaction validity. By contrast, private entities function as standard mBL nodes: they share the same technical capabilities as public actors but are excluded from the consensus process.

In addition, the mBL was designed to be Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible, thereby enabling the execution of smart contracts across different blockchain platforms (BIS, 2023a, p. 4). Its architecture emphasises interoperability, ensuring compatibility with DLT environments and even integration with cross-border Real-Time Gross Settlement systems. Notably, participation does not require prior issuance of a domestic CBDC, potentially lowering entry barriers and facilitating broader membership.

Therefore, mBridge operates on a technical code – a bundle of monetary rights and payment instructions – that embeds national legal rules and public settlement arrangements governing its operation. Complementing this technological backbone is a set of regulatory interoperability measures that aim to ensure oversight and compliance across participating jurisdictions. By placing public authorities at the core of its architecture, this layered structure ensures that strategic, policy and operational oversight and control remains firmly anchored in state participation, while still engaging private-sector stakeholders in implementation.

Yet the technological foundation of this multilateral project seems to be already anchored in the design choices and ownership of one, specific state actor. While mBridge was presented as a collaborative BIS-led experiment, the fact that its core technical layer – the mBL – is a Chinese innovation reveals a more strategic dimension. It indicates how non-Western central banks, and China in particular, are actively seeking to position themselves as technological and normative standard-setters in the emerging infrastructure of cross-border payments, thereby translating infrastructural capabilities into longer-term geopolitical influence.

Remarkably, in October 2024, Agustín Carstens, BIS General manager, announced that the Hub would withdraw from the mBridge project, leaving the participating central banks to carry it forward independently (Carstens, 2024). From a technical perspective, this decision can be understood as the BIS having completed its initial “seed” function, i.e. to catalyse innovation and provide institutional legitimacy during the project’s formative stages.

However, the political dynamics surrounding the parallel BRICS initiative may also have influenced the BIS’s decision, pointing to more complex geopolitical considerations. Introduced at the 2024 BRICS Summit, the BRICS proposal envisioned the establishment of a new DLT-based cross-border payment system among the original BRICS members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and later joined by South Africa – which was subsequently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. Carstens (2024) insisted though that mBridge should not be conflated with the “BRICS bridge” initiative, underscoring that it was not designed to serve the specific interests of the BRICS countries but rather to address the broader needs of central banks. The BIS sought to pre-empt accusations that it was indirectly enabling Russia to evade sanctions by supporting the mBridge development.

The aspiration for greater geopolitical and monetary autonomy among BRICS countries is not new (Liu and Papa, 2022). Beyond the aim of circumventing the US dollar as an intermediary currency, such efforts reflect an ambition to reduce structural dependence on Western-led payment infrastructures. For BRICS members subject to G7 sanctions, this may also provide a strategic layer of protection. From Russia’s perspective in particular, the initiative represents a deliberate attempt to construct a more “autonomous” and resilient financial architecture (Demarais, 2024).

The BRICS-Bridge – formally renamed the BCBPI (Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Bank of Russia, and Yakov and Partners, 2024, p. 4) – seeks to challenge existing infrastructures on two main fronts: firstly, by eroding the dominance of US dollar–centred, privately governed institutions and the Western-led sanctions regime they underpin; and secondly, by advancing a state-driven alternative capable of reconfiguring the architecture of cross-border payments. The published BCBPI document explicitly recommended the adoption of ‘DLT-based solutions or a new multinational platform utilising modern technologies, which would include a financial messaging component and enable settlements through tokens backed by national currencies or CBDCs, at the discretion of each participating country – [an] approach [that] would foster a greater degree of decentralization’ (Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, Bank of Russia, and Yakov and Partners, 2024, p. 32).

The final declaration of the BRICS Kazan Summit in 2024 included an explicit reference to the BCBPI, with members highlighting the possibility of strengthening the “correspondent banking networks” and “enabling settlements in local currencies” in line with the “voluntary and non-binding” BCBPI, expressing their intention to pursue further discussions within the BRICS Payment Task Force (BRICS, 2024, item 65, p. 17). At the 2025 BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, members reiterated their commitment by mandating finance ministers and central bank governors, ‘as appropriate,’ to continue discussions on the BCBPI; they also acknowledged the progress of the Task Force in outlining ‘possible pathways to advance these deliberations,’ particularly regarding the enhancement of ‘the interoperability of BRICS payment systems’ (BRICS, 2025, item 50, p. 13).

The reference to the BCBPI in the both Summit declarations highlights how geopolitical coordination can mark an initial step towards new monetary infrastructures, privileging local currency settlement as symbols of monetary autonomy. At the same time, the emphasis on the initiative’s ‘voluntary and non-binding’ character reveals underlying limits of trust and cohesion among BRICS members, which may increase the likelihood of multiple “CBDC clusters” (Wang and Gao, 2023) emerging.

The BRICS initiative therefore exemplifies both the promise and the peril of regional experiments: while they may enhance monetary sovereignty for participating states, in the absence of common standards and platforms they risk deepening fragmentation within the evolving IMS architecture. In contrast to mBridge – framed as a technically driven initiative aimed at promoting interoperability and efficiency across jurisdictions – the BCBPI is explicitly geopolitical in orientation. Its ambition extends beyond the creation of an alternative infrastructure to symbolically asserting the BRICS bloc’s monetary autonomy vis-à-vis Western-led institutions. Its largely declaratory character is evidenced by the absence of substantive progress following the Rio Summit, as well as by the limited public information and apparent inactivity surrounding the dedicated Task Force.

By supporting the mBridge development, the BIS, while lacking both the mandate and the willingness to fundamentally disrupt the current financial infrastructure or displace the central role of the US dollar, has nonetheless challenged existing cross-border arrangements at a technical level by promoting innovations that enhance efficiency and interoperability. The BCBPI, by contrast, has thus far remained largely symbolic – more a geopolitical declaration of intent than a technically viable proposal. It seems to reinforce that its primary function is to project monetary autonomy rather than to establish a fully operational alternative infrastructure (see Demarais, 2023, 2024).

Yet, this symbolism has nonetheless generated tangible effects, with direct spill-overs for mBridge and its institutional and geopolitical positioning. Notably, the BIS withdrew from mBridge in 2024 (Long, 2024; Carstens, 2024), a decision that may be read as an effort to distance the institution from the increasingly explicit BRICS-related political framing surrounding the BCBPI. In parallel, Donald Trump’s public opposition to BRICS de-dollarisation plans – including threats of tariffs against any move away from the US dollar (Shakil, 2025) – illustrates how even anticipatory payment infrastructure initiatives can provoke immediate and forceful geopolitical reactions. Taken together, these developments underscore how symbolic infrastructural initiatives may rapidly acquire material significance within contested configurations of monetary power.

This article has argued that the contest over monetary sovereignty in the digital age is increasingly fought on infrastructural terrain. CBDCs – and in particular multi-CBDC platforms – redefine monetary sovereignty by turning it into an infrastructural practice. They relocate the locus of authority from private utilities to state-run payment rails, embedding public governance directly in code, smart contracts and consensus protocols.

CBDC projects on payment infrastructures thus become explicit sites of sovereign decision-making: they are governed by monetary authorities rather than private networks. Conceptually, this reframes sovereignty as infrastructural: technology, standards and institutional arrangements for cross-border settlement become the medium through which monetary sovereignty is exercised beyond borders. Practically, it integrates messaging, clearing and settlement on a state-driven ledger rather than relying on private, fragmented Western-centric utilities (e.g. SWIFT, CHIPS or CLS). The outcome is greater control over who can transact, under what rules and with which form of (central bank or private) money – although sovereignty here concerns the governance of payments rather than the deeper drivers of macroeconomic autonomy.

The broader geopolitical implications lie in the potential rebalancing of power within an IMS anchored in the US dollar and its supporting infrastructures. Multi-CBDC platforms create pathways for direct settlement in local currency pairs, reducing reliance on US dollar-centric private utilities and offering some degree of insulation from financial sanctions by enabling states to transact on their own rails. mBridge illustrates a technically credible route – combining real-value pilots with public-law governance – that may shift leverage away from Western-centric chokepoints. The BRICS proposal underscores the geopolitical ambition of such projects, though it remains more declaratory than operational at this stage.

Still, the constraints are significant: entrenched US dollar liquidity and benchmark pricing in foreign exchange markets, uneven technological capacity across jurisdictions, divergent legal and technical standards and the risk of fragmented “CBDC clusters”. The principal technological challenge lies in fragmentation: networks, token architectures and data standards are developing in parallel, without a common connective layer. In the absence of shared standards, such discrepancies risk trapping liquidity and delaying settlement across jurisdictions, thereby undermining the efficiency of cross-border transactions – the very problem that multi-CBDC platforms are intended to address.

Even with the success and further expansion of mBridge, the likely outcome is not a wholesale dethroning of the US dollar but rather an incremental redistribution of infrastructural power, enabling a modest expansion of the external dimension of monetary sovereignty for some state adopters. This expansion, however, remains structurally uneven, as evidenced by the governance architecture of the mBridge platform – centred on a Steering Committee composed of founding members – and by the intellectual property rights over a core technological component. These features may entrench asymmetries between founding and subsequent participants, particularly in terms of agenda-setting authority, access to technical knowledge, and capacity to shape future standards.

As a result, while later-joining states may gain operational benefits, their influence over the platform’s technological evolution and governance may remain constrained, reinforcing differentiated forms of monetary power within the system. Multi-CBDC platforms should therefore be understood less as replacements of existing monetary hierarchies than as incremental reconfigurations of infrastructural monetary power. Whether such innovations can consolidate into a more inclusive and interoperable global architecture will depend on sustained political will, common standard-setting and multilateral cooperation. In this respect, CBDCs do not merely represent new monetary instruments. They are infrastructural interventions in the international political economy, through which institutions, law, technology and geopolitics converge to reshape the conditions monetary sovereignty is exercised.

The authors sincerely appreciate the insightful comments of the anonymous reviewers, as well as the feedback received during the Brazilian Central Bank conference at the Central Bank of Brazil, Brasília, Brazil on May 14, 15 and 16 in 2025. Special thanks are also extended to Bianca Orsi, Carolina Garriga, Florence Dafe, Giselle Datz, Maria Antonieta Del Tedesco Lins and Will Bateman for the engaging discussions on CLS during the ISA Conference 2025, and to colleagues at the ESSCA EU*Asia Institute and the ECLS research meeting for their valuable input. Any remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the authors.