On 18 May 2023, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (“HKMA”) kickstarted the e-HKD Pilot Programme. This Programme aims to explore the commercial viability of potential uses for a retail central bank digital currency, i.e., e-HKD. On 30 October 2023, the HKMA released the “e-HKD Pilot Programme Phase 1 Report” (“Report”). The Report discusses the findings and assessments of 14 pilots conducted by 16 participating firms across six categories, namely full-pledged payments, programmable payments, offline payments, tokenised deposits, settlement of Web3 transactions, and settlement of tokenised assets. The Report also highlights the potential benefits of an e-HKD in terms of programmability, tokenisation, and atomic settlement.
However, further evaluation is needed for real-life applications. The HKMA has not yet made a policy decision on whether or when to introduce an e-HKD, and further study is needed on implementation issues and market development. The HKMA will explore new use cases and analyse selected pilots from Phase 1 in the next phase.
The HKMA press release on the Report is available here. To view the Report, please click here.
