Commercial Bank of Dubai completes a Digital Dirham transfer
Commercial Bank of Dubai completed a two-way wholesale Digital Dirham transfer with Bank of China on Jisr, with amount, corridor timing and retail use unstated.
Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) said on November 10, 2026 that it had completed a wholesale Digital Dirham transfer with Bank of China, with each bank sending and receiving the central bank digital currency (CBDC) on the Central Bank of the UAE's Jisr platform. The detail that matters for a payments desk is the shape of the rail. Jisr is a bilateral link, so one UAE bank can settle dirham central-bank money with one Chinese counterparty on a corridor already opened, a different arrangement from the multilateral mBridge minimum viable product that carried the UAE's first real-value Digital Dirham payment to China.
On that earlier rail, the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) recorded a January 2024 payment of AED 50 million, initiated by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan through mBridge, a common platform shared with the People's Bank of China, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand. CBD's November announcement is the commercial-bank version of the China corridor: both institutions sent and both received, and the bank says the payment ran from initiation through to settlement on Jisr. The statement distributed on November 10 places the transfer inside the CBUAE-led Digital Dirham programme and says it builds on the bank's earlier cross-border wholesale CBDC work.
What changes for a cross-border wholesale payment is the settlement asset and the number of balance-sheet hops. A conventional dirham payment toward a bank in China moves as a chain of commercial-bank claims, with each correspondent holding a balance for the next institution. Jisr, which the CBUAE inaugurated on November 19, 2025 with a group of Emirati and Chinese banks, is built for CBDC settlement on a direct bilateral connection. The central bank said the platform aims to facilitate cross-border payments, lower transaction costs and settle instantly. Its 2025 annual report describes the same mechanism as cross-border settlement in CBDC through direct bilateral connectivity. The new transfer shows the two commercial banks using that link in both directions in wholesale Digital Dirham.
The report also says Jisr has brought CBDC into the domestic wholesale market, beginning with government-related payments, and that the first live government transaction in the Digital Dirham was executed in 2025. Liquidity management tools, programmable settlement and foreign-exchange functionality were listed as planned enhancements, so the bank statement is a Digital Dirham movement between two institutions, a narrower fact than a currency-exchange corridor. Other projects are testing a different liability: Bloquo's work on Brazilian bank settlement, the Japanese tokenised-deposit test that put a stablecoin on the interbank leg, and Jack Henry's plan for tokenised deposits. Those move commercial-bank or stablecoin claims. The Digital Dirham on Jisr is a liability of the CBUAE.
Dr Bernd van Linder, chief executive officer at Commercial Bank of Dubai, said: "By contributing our banking expertise, we aim to support the development of cross-border payment capabilities and the UAE's continued growth as a global trade and financial hub." Vladislavs Mironovs, chief digital officer at Commercial Bank of Dubai, said: "Completing this transaction with Bank of China through the Jisr platform demonstrates our ability to execute cross-border Digital Dirham payments and supports our continued participation in the development of cross-border Digital Dirham use cases." CBD said it will keep working with the CBUAE, Bank of China and other partners, in line with central bank requirements.
The Digital Dirham is legal tender under Federal Decree-Law (54) of 2023 and sits in the Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) Programme, launched in 2023, which also houses mBridge. The 2025 annual report says the CBUAE developed a Digital Dirham wallet for retail and wholesale use cases. mBridge remains the multi-CBDC platform shared with Thailand and Hong Kong as well as China. Jisr, on the annual report's wording, is the direct bilateral connection, so a treasury can treat the China link as open for a send-and-receive test in Digital Dirham and still treat a dirham-yuan exchange, or a third jurisdiction, as a later question.
The announcement, which describes a wholesale transfer between two banks rather than a retail coin, leaves the size, the timing of any next corridor, and retail access unstated. In November 2025 the CBUAE said Jisr was expected to add further central banks during 2026. CBD has shown that one UAE bank can send and receive wholesale Digital Dirham with Bank of China on the bilateral link. A second corridor, or a repeat on this one with a published amount, is what would change the read-through for treasurers.
This article is informational analysis only and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile and can lose substantial value rapidly. Past performance and historical patterns do not guarantee future results. Do your own research and consult a regulated financial adviser before making any investment decision.
Reporting by Karthik Subramanian. Filed 15 November 2026, 21:50 GMT.
Digital Assets Correspondent
Karthik Subramanian is a founder, writer, and technology consultant with nine years in the crypto ecosystem.
