In its position paper released on 20 September 2022, the HKMA introduced a three-rail approach for possible implementation of e-HKD, the retail Central Bank Digital Currency in Hong Kong. The position paper “e-HKD: Charting the Next Steps” can be accessed here.
On 18 May 2023, the HKMA announced the commencement of the e-HKD Pilot Programme. The e-HKD Pilot Programme is a key component of Rail 2 of the three-rail approach, through which the HKMA and stakeholders can gain actual experience of application and examine use cases and other implementation and design issues relating to e-HKD.
The HKMA has selected 16 firms from the financial, payment and technology sectors to participate in the first round of pilots, which includes proposed use cases on programmable payments, settlement of tokenised assets and Web3 transactions, tokenised deposits, offline payments and full-fledged payments. In the next few months, the HKMA will collaborate closely with the selected firms in conducting the pilots. More rounds of pilots with the industry are expected in the future.
The HKMA has not yet decided whether to introduce e-HKD. Depending on actual outcome and results of the pilots, the HKMA aims to share key findings with the public at Hong Kong FinTech Week 2023.
Please click here for more information on the press release.
