Taiwan continues to develop its central bank digital currency (CBDC), focusing on improving the operational efficiency of the asset rather than the speed of its deployment. At the same time, Taiwan Mobile, one of the largest local telecom providers, received a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license.
Yang Chin-long, Governor of the Central Bank of the Republic of China, outlined the regulator’s plans for the issuance of the digital Taiwan dollar. He emphasized that the bank’s efforts are focused on making steady progress and improving the CBDC’s operational efficiency, rather than the speed of digital currency adoption.
Chin-long also noted that being the first to issue the CBDC doesn’t guarantee success, as countries that already issued or are testing digital currencies didn’t achieve the expected results. Therefore, Taiwan’s central bank will continue CBDC experiments as part of improving domestic payments efficiency and innovation. Specifically, there’ll be a series of tests of the digital Taiwan dollar in the following scenarios:
- Interbank transfers of deposit tokens.
- Simultaneous delivery of asset tokens.
- Special-purpose digital money.
Chin-long also stated that Taiwan’s central bank developed a prototype platform for a retail CBDC, with transaction processing speeds reaching 20,000 transactions per second. In addition, the regulator is developing a concept for a wholesale CBDC, which will be the basis for using digital currency as a liquidation asset for tokenization.
Taiwan’s crypto market is actively developing. According to a Bloomberg report, Taiwan Mobile, the second largest telecommunications provider in the region, plans to open a cryptocurrency exchange. For this purpose, the corporation obtained a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Taiwanese Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).
According to Zheng Guangtai, Chairman of Taiwan’s VASP Association, the interest of such a large corporation in the digital asset market will be a catalyst for its growth. He also noted that Taiwan Mobile became the first major member of the Association, most of whose members are startups.
Taiwan’s self-regulatory VASP Association was established in September 2023 amid tightened regulation.
