The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) announced the commencement of the first round of its e-HKD Pilot Programme in which 16 firms from the financial, payment and technology sectors will participate. The participants will explore the potential use of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), i.e. the e-HKD, in six categories, including full-fledged payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenised deposits, settlement of Web3 transactions and settlement of tokenised assets. The e-HKD Pilot Programme is a key component of Rail 2 under the HKMA’s three-rail approach in paving the way for the possible implementation of the CBDC in the future. Under the Pilot Programme, the HKMA will conduct a series of pilots in close collaboration with various stakeholders to examine the use cases, as well as implementation and design issues relating to e-HKD.
Sources: https://cutt.ly/WwqWXJBS
