- The Hong Kong Financial Authority introduced the launch of the e-HKD pilot program.
- This system is a part of a broader plan to discover the introduction of a retail CBDC by the HKMA.
- The pilot program may have 16 firms, together with Ripple Labs and Mastercard.
The Hong Kong Financial Authority (HKMA) has launched an e-HKD pilot program, paving the best way for the potential introduction of a Retail Central Financial institution Digital Forex (CBDC) in Hong Kong. This pilot program is a part of a broader plan by city-states to discover retail CBDC use circumstances in quite a lot of functions, together with tokenized asset funds, offline funds, and programmable funds.
Hong Kong’s central banking establishment’s newest pilot program will contain 16 firms from the monetary, cost and expertise sectors, in response to a HKMA press launch. Based on the listing, these firms embody blockchain large Ripple Labs, Customary Chartered, and prime cost options suppliers Visa and Mastercard.
The e-HKD pilot program is a crucial a part of Rail 2 below the Hong Kong Financial Authority’s 3-rail method, presenting a roadmap and timeline for potential retail CBDCs within the city-state. Following Rail 2, HKMA will delve deeper into use circumstances, functions, implementations and design points associated to e-HKD.
This section additionally features a sequence of pilots in collaboration with trade stakeholders to evaluate feasibility and achieve hands-on expertise. Rail 2 will run parallel to Rail 1 and goals to put the technical and authorized basis to help the implementation of e-HKD. Rail 1 additionally consists of legislative change preparations to make CBDC authorized tender in Hong Kong.
HKMA CEO Eddie Yue mentioned the pilot program will assist Hong Kong keep its standing as a world monetary hub. “We welcome the optimistic suggestions we now have acquired and agree with respondents that we have to dig deeper into points equivalent to privateness safety and use circumstances,” he added.
