DLT based Cross Border Payments - A POC

Project Aber by SAMA & CBUAE demonstrates viability of DLT as a mechanism for settlement and confirms the technical viability of a single digital currency issued by both central banks:

The 6 banks participating in Project Aber

The central banks of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have jointly released a comprehensive report on the year-long study they had undertaken to create a joint central bank digital currency (CBDC). The major highlight of the project - called Project Aber - is the relevance of blockchain technology in the future of global currencies.

The project, announced in January 2019, was initially intended to create a ‘proof of concept’ designed to “contribute in the body of knowledge in CBDC and DLT technologies’. A first of its kind study by 2 central banks, the project was aptly named Aber, meaning ‘crossing boundaries’, in Arabic. Divided into 3 distinct phases that progressively expanded the scope of the trial to 6 different commercial banks, the report notes that the project used a digital currency backed with real money in order to force “greater consideration” of issues surrounding security and existing payment systems.

The major conclusion in the report is that a dual-issued CBDC was “not only technically viable” for cross border payments, but CBDCs present “significant improvement over centralized payment systems in terms of architectural resilience’.