The National Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute Mu Changchun said China and Hong Kong are launching a second phase of testing their state digital currency.
At a seminar on the status and prospects of the Hong Kong International Financial Center, Mu Changchun stated that the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) have successfully completed the first phase of testing cross-border payments using the digital yuan.
At the second stage, it is planned to study the possibility of combining the digital currency system with the Faster Payments Service (FPS) fast payment system, as well as to increase the efficiency of payments by adapting the digital currency of the Central Bank to the needs of the population of China and Hong Kong.
“In the future, when mainland tourists use the digital yuan to shop in Hong Kong, currency exchange will be carried out between the two wallets, and local sellers will receive money in Hong Kong dollars, so there will be no conversion,” Changchun said.
He also said that the development of a test platform has been completed as part of mBridge, an international initiative of central banks to study the government digital currencies of Thailand, the UAE, Hong Kong and China. Changchun noted that the bridge makes transactions faster, cheaper and more transparent.
Recall that in February, the Central Bank of China and the UAE joined the “bridge” project for the state cryptocurrencies of Thailand and Hong Kong. It was revealed last month that regulators in Hong Kong and the NBK are jointly testing government digital currencies.
