Commercial Bank of Dubai Becomes First Middle East Bank to Join CBMT Tokenised Money Network

Commercial Bank of Dubai has joined the Commercial Bank Money Token (CBMT) network, becoming the first Middle East bank to participate in the initiative. Finextra reported that the bank's participation extends the CBMT ecosystem beyond Europe, with UDPN and GFT supporting it as technical service providers to the CBMT Sandbox.

Commercial Bank of Dubai Joins the CBMT Sandbox

CBD will onboard to the CBMT Sandbox alongside participant banks, with UDPN and GFT supporting as technical service providers. The participants will explore use cases including cross-border corporate payments, trade settlement, cross-jurisdiction treasury operations and working capital optimisation along the Europe-Gulf corridor. All sandbox activities remain subject to applicable regulatory requirements and do not constitute a commitment to commercial launch.

CBMT is spearheaded by Die Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (DK) and built with participants including Commerzbank, DZ Bank, Helaba, UniCredit, ABN AMRO Bank, BNP Paribas and DNB. It brings commercial bank money onto distributed ledger technology, enabling banks to settle corporate payments in tokenised form while maintaining the safeguards of regulated bank deposits. The CBMT Sandbox launched in Frankfurt in November 2025, following a 2024 proof of concept, and serves as a collaborative test environment for institutional and corporate use cases across the full lifecycle of tokenised money flows, from issuance to enterprise payments and interbank settlement.

"CBMT was designed as a multi-issuer, multi-currency network from day one, and CBD shows that design working beyond Europe," said Florian Becker, Managing Director APAC & GCC at GFT. "As a forward-looking innovator in digital currency and the first Middle East bank to join CBMT, CBD opens the network to a new region."

Commercial Bank of Dubai's Digital Partnerships

Commercial Bank of Dubai (founded 1969, listed on Dubai Financial Market) is a UAE universal bank with AED 163.4 billion in assets, according to akta.pro company records. The same records show a June 2026 partnership with Dubai Holding Real Estate to launch a home financing programme for Nakheel, Meraas and Dubai Properties buyers, and a June 2026 role in Dubai's 'SME in a Box' digital platform with the Department of Economy and Tourism and 17 other partners.

Earlier Commercial Bank of Dubai Moves

In October 2026, DNB and Commercial Bank of Dubai joined the CBMT sandbox, bringing total participants to eight, with the tokenized deposit initiative founded by German banks now including the Norwegian krone alongside the euro, dollar and yen, Ledger Insights reported. In August 2026, Commercial Bank of Dubai extended its partnership with 4most to continue strengthening its model risk management framework, building on a collaboration that began in April 2023, Consultancy-me reported. In July 2026, Commercial Bank of Dubai launched 'UP by CBD', a mobile banking platform designed for micro and small businesses, combining mobile account opening with instant credit access, payroll solutions, transfers and savings in a single app, LogisticsGulf reported.