Hong Kong Monetary Authority to Commence e-HKD Pilot Programme

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has announced the commencement of the e-HKD Pilot Programme. Sixteen firms from the financial, payment, and technology sectors have been chosen to participate in the first round of pilots, which will explore potential use cases in six categories, including full-fledged payments, programmable payments, and settlement of tokenised assets.

The pilot program is part of the HKMA's three-rail approach, paving the way for the potential implementation of a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). The HKMA will collaborate with various stakeholders to examine the use cases and implementation issues relating to e-HKD.

Alipay Financial Services (HK) was selected for the programmable payments use case, Ripple Labs was selected for the tokenised asset settlement use case, and Visa and Mastercard were selected for the tokenised deposit and Web3 transaction settlement use cases respectively.

The Chief Executive of the HKMA, Mr Eddie Yue, said that the pilots serve as a tremendous opportunity for the HKMA to collaborate with the industry in exploring innovative use cases and maximizing readiness for a potential e-HKD.

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