Hong Kong Advances to Second Phase of CBDC Pilot, Explores Tokenization and Programmability
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is progressing to the second phase of its e-HKD (e-Hong Kong dollar) pilot initiative, aimed at testing potential use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
In the initial phase, 16 diverse firms from financial, payment, and technology sectors delved into various CBDC applications, focusing on areas such as full-fledged payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenized deposits, settlement of web3 transactions, and settlement of tokenized assets. Notably, participants like Mastercard explored innovative concepts like “wrapping” e-HKD for utilization across different blockchains, simulating transactions involving physical items and NFTs.
The HKMA’s report highlighted stakeholders’ positive reception to e-HKD, while emphasizing concerns related to privacy, legal considerations, and cybersecurity risks associated with programmable retail CBDCs. Moving forward, the second phase of the pilot will build upon the accomplishments of phase one, exploring new e-HKD use cases and delving deeper into selected pilot projects from the initial stage.
Clever Robot News Desk 2nd November 2023
