Monetary authorities in Hong Kong have unveiled a prototype of the Chinese language autonomous territory’s personal central financial institution digital foreign money referred to as Undertaking Aurum. The 2-tier platform incorporates a wholesale interbank and a retail e-wallet system, members revealed.
Hong Kong to Situation Retail Tokens and Stablecoins as A part of Undertaking Aurum
A collaboration between the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the Hong Kong Financial Authority (HKMA), and the Hong Kong Utilized Science and Expertise Analysis Institute has produced a prototype of Hong Kong’s upcoming digital foreign money, the Financial institution for Worldwide Settlements (BIS) introduced.
Undertaking Aurum is a full-stack, front-end and back-end, central financial institution digital foreign money (CBDC) system comprising a wholesale interbank system and a retail e-wallet system, the worldwide monetary establishment defined in a press launch this week.
Individuals in Aurum wish to launch two several types of digital tokens. The primary type will probably be an intermediated digital foreign money whereas the second will probably be a CBDC-backed stablecoin circulated within the interbank system. The BIS remarked:
The latter is exclusive within the research of CBDC up to now. Privateness, security and suppleness are core to the system.
“Bringing CBDC-backed stablecoins to life has by no means been finished earlier than and we, due to this fact, felt that doing so could complement the rising physique of analysis on personal sector stablecoins,” the undertaking’s authors elaborate. They additional clarify that in distinction with personal stablecoins, Aurum’s stablecoin balances are reconciled, versus real-time gross settlement balances of the issuing financial institution with the central financial institution.
The builders consider that the system of CBDC-backed stablecoins can be utilized by financial authorities after they attempt to work out the regulatory approaches in regard to personal sector stablecoins, “particularly whereas looking for to design strategies to confirm the backing of the stablecoins, a extremely topical matter.” Identical to with its fiat foreign money, three of Hong Kong’s monetary establishments will probably be licensed to situation state-backed digital cash.
Hong Kong, one of many world’s main monetary facilities, has been intensifying efforts to meet up with others on the CBDC improvement entrance, together with mainland China which has been expanding the digital yuan (e-CNY) pilot. The Chinese language particular administrative area began exploring the issuance of its personal CBDC in March 2021.
In September of this 12 months, the HKMA said that it was making ready to trial a digital model of the Hong Kong greenback (e-HKD) within the coming months. The financial authority additionally took half in trials of cross-border CBDC transactions with the Folks’s Financial institution of China and the central banks of Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.
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