Customers of the U.K. bank Standard Chartered will have access to digital yuan (e-CNY) transactions. The bank also plans to test cross-border merchant payments, trade financing, and supply chain finance using China’s CBDC.
Standard Chartered Bank, one of the biggest banks in the United Kingdom and one of the systemically important banks, has joined the testing of the e-CNY, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Standard Chartered China will participate in the e-CNY pilot testing program. City Bank Clearing Services Co., Ltd. has joined the project as a partner to provide the bank’s customers with access to China’s CBDC.
Standard Chartered customers will be able to buy, exchange, and use the digital yuan in other transactions via their bank accounts. Moreover, representatives of the bank plan to explore cross-border merchant payments, trade financing, and supply chain financing through the e-CNY pilot testing program, which is currently operating in 26 cities and provinces.
Standard Chartered has become one of the first foreign banks to participate in the digital yuan pilot. Earlier, the bank’s analysts published a joint report with PwC China in which they named the Greater Bay Area (GBA) as an ideal testing ground for programmable CBDCs. Representatives of Standard Chartered Hong Kong took part in testing offline payments using Hong Kong’s retail CBDC. In addition, Standard Chartered Singapore representatives tested the issuance of tokenized assets backed by securities as part of Project Guardian.
