HKMA Announces Project Ensemble: A Leap Towards Central Bank Digital Currency
Summary:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is set to launch Project Ensemble, aiming to develop a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) to bolster tokenization. The project will focus on innovating interbank settlements using wCBDC and target tokenized deposits initially. It will also facilitate a special wCBDC Architecture Community, involving local and global banks, key players, and the HKMA CBDC Expert Group. The HKMA announcement also indicated its collaborations on projects and tests with several banks. HKMA had previously issued guidelines on dealing with non-regulated tokenized products.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has unveiled plans for a new project, codenamed Project Ensemble, aimed at developing a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) to facilitate tokenization. If there's enough interest, this venture could lead to the release of an operational CBDC, according to a statement released by HKMA. The project will primarily focus on establishing an innovative framework for interbank settlements via wCBDC and will initially target tokenized deposits, essentially tokenized commercial bank money for transactions involving tokenized assets.
The initial phase will spawn a research and testing sandbox, exploring varying tokenization use cases, such as trading tokenized assets like green bonds, carbon credits, electronic bills, and even tangible assets like aircraft and electric vehicle charging stations.
HKMA is also preparing to set up a wCBDC Architecture Community, comprising multinational and local banks, major role players, and the HKMA CBDC Expert Group formed in October, having 11 intellects from diverse fields and Hong Kong's universities. This platform will also incorporate other central banks and international organizations.
The press release from HKMA has, however, misrepresented any link with the Bank for International Settlements, while it did mention the BIS projects that HKMA is part of, such as Projects mBridge, Dynamo, and Genesis, and its collaborations on local and Chinese bank experiments. It includes tests done together with HSBC and Hang Seng using the bank's e-HKD in-house CBDC. HSBC and Ant Group have also delved into another project focusing on tokenized deposits for within-network fund transfers.
Earlier this year, HKMA rolled out instructions concerning the selling and distribution of non-regulated tokenized products by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission. This organization is now contemplating a regulatory ecosystem for stablecoins.
Published At
3/7/2024 9:17:49 PM
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