Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) has become the first bank outside Europe to join the Commercial Bank Money Token (CBMT) initiative. The Dubai-based bank will initially participate in the CBMT Sandbox to explore tokenised commercial bank money and cross-border settlement.
CBD’s participation will connect the European CBMT ecosystem with the Europe-Gulf trade corridor. The bank will examine potential applications including cross-border corporate payments, trade settlement, treasury operations and working capital management.
CBMT is a collaborative initiative led by the German Banking Industry Committee. It explores how commercial bank money can operate on distributed ledger technology while remaining linked to regulated bank deposits.
Unlike stablecoins, CBMT tokens represent claims on regulated commercial banks. The deposits remain on the issuing bank’s balance sheet and continue to be subject to existing banking requirements.
The CBMT Sandbox was launched in Frankfurt in November 2025 following an earlier proof of concept. The initiative allows banks and corporate participants to test tokenised money flows without using real funds.
European participants include Commerzbank, DZ Bank, Helaba, UniCredit, ABN AMRO, BNP Paribas and DNB. The network has also expanded its supported currencies, with the Norwegian krone recently added alongside the euro, US dollar and Japanese yen.
CBD said its participation would allow it to explore faster and more transparent settlement for corporate clients operating between Europe and the Gulf. The bank brings more than five decades of corporate and trade finance experience in the UAE to the initiative.
