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Exclusive | Hong Kong’s ‘cutting-edge’ central bank digital currency pilot burnishes blockchain credentials, boosts international financial hub status, HKMA’s Yue says

  • ‘We’ve always been at the cutting edge of the whole blockchain evolution, including CBDCs,’ Hong Kong Monetary Authority CEO tells the Post
  • Bank for International Settlements executive ‘heartened’ by HKMA’s wCBDC project

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The HKMA, the BIS and most central banks see ‘tokenisation as a good part of the future financial market’, Yue says. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Aileen Chuang

Hong Kong’s move to implement a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) pilot will benefit its status as an international financial hub while putting it on the global map for issuing digital deposits and assets, as well as attracting talent and market participants in the sector, according to Eddie Yue Wai-man.

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“We’ve always been at the cutting edge of the whole blockchain evolution, including CBDCs,” Yue, CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city’s de facto central bank, said in an interview with the Post. The wCBDC pilot will establish Hong Kong as a reference for the latest developments in digital currencies, he added.

“I believe that we are one of the first to push forward with the actual implementation of a wholesale CBDC, plus the tokenised asset and tokenised deposit environment,” Yue said.

Central banks around the world have been pivoting towards innovating future types of money on digital networks, aligning with the “unified ledger” vision that the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) outlined last June.

A unified ledger combines central bank and commercial bank money with other assets in common digital infrastructures, making it possible to instantly pay, clear and settle any transaction through tokenisation, smart contracts and programmability.

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A wCBDC will be at the core of such a system, as the central bank money used for interbank settlement will provide confidence and added functionalities enabled by tokenisation.
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