Within two days, four major international banks have integrated the digital yuan (e-CNY) into their platforms, joining the Chinese CBDC pilot program.
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, owned by one of the biggest multinational financial conglomerates HSBC, joined the digital yuan testing. This is reported by local publication Securities Daily. According to China Securities News, Hang Seng Bank, one of the largest banks in Hong Kong, also part of HSBC, has joined the pilot program of the People’s Bank of China. Furthermore, Taiwan’s Fubon Bank will also take part in the testing of the Chinese digital currency, Shanghai Securities News reported.
Information about all three banks joining the testing appeared on the same day. The Chinese CBDC will be available to users in mobile banking apps through interaction with the official e-CNY wallet. Retail customers will be able to fully use the e-CNY as a digital currency by linking digital yuan accounts to their debit bank cards.
Representatives of the banks intend to explore the CBDC applications in cross-border trading, smart contracts, international payments, and supply chain financing. It’s planned to create and test new scenarios for using the e-CNY in the real economy. Yesterday, it became known that Standard Chartered China joined the digital yuan pilot program with the same objectives.
According to the People’s Bank of China, the transaction volume of the digital yuan by the end of June 2023 reached 1.8 trillion yuan (~$250 billion). In about a year, the transaction volume in CBDCs has grown by 1,700%, with about 120 million Chinese using the e-CNY to pay for their daily needs.
