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Hong Kong sets stage for e-CNY use, to launch pilot ‘soon after Spring Festival’
- The pilot will strengthen Hong Kong’s role as an international offshore yuan trading centre, HKMA’s Eddie Yue says
- ‘Restaurants and other shops in Lan Kwai Fong will like to join the test, because the e-CNY is the future of payments’: Allan Zeman
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Hong Kong will soon roll out a pilot scheme for the use of the digital yuan – or e-CNY – in the city for shopping and dining, making the special administrative region the first offshore city to use this digital currency outside mainland China.
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“The pilot testing of e-CNY will be an important move for Hong Kong to strengthen its role as an international offshore yuan trading centre,” Eddie Yue Wai-man, CEO of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city’s de facto central bank, said on Monday in a regular monthly financial affairs panel meeting of the Legislative Council.
He did not give the exact launch date but said: “It will launch soon after the Spring Festival.” According to Chinese tradition, this period ends on the 15th day of Lunar New Year, which falls on February 15 this year.
The HKMA has been testing the use of the digital yuan since March last year, with some bank staff using Hong Kong’s Faster Payment System (FPS) electronic payments platform to transfer Hong Kong dollars into e-CNY wallets. Under the pilot, the HKMA and the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will select certain mainland visitors and other individuals to use e-CNY at select shops and restaurants in Hong Kong, while Hongkongers who live in mainland Chinese Greater Bay Area cities will also be able to use the digital currency instead of two separate e-wallets previously.
Those who want to use the digital yuan will need to download e-CNY wallets, which will link up with Hong Kong’s FPS, to top up and make payments. The FPS had 9.6 million registered users at the end of last year, and the average number of daily transactions rose 90 per cent year on year to 670,000 in 2021.
Lawmakers welcomed the pilot, which Yue said would initially focus on retail payments before being expanded to cover wholesale transactions at a later stage.
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