Cross-border payments: China’s central bank and Oman’s central bank signed a five-year local-currency swap worth about RMB 30 billion / OMR 1.5 billion, and simultaneously signed a memorandum of understanding on digital-currency cooperation, with a focus on facilitating cross-border payments and maintaining financial-market stability. What bears watching is the pace at which the swap facility is actually drawn down, whether digital-currency cooperation focuses on retail or wholesale use, and whether the Middle East corridor becomes a template for more bilateral local-currency settlements. Don’t equate the memorandum directly with CBDCs being interoperable and operational, and don’t overlook the constraints that geopolitics and sanctions compliance impose on the channel.