Hong Kong has launched a sandbox for its wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) project, Project Ensemble, as it moves a step closer to testing tokenization within the traditional financial industry.
Wholesale CBDCs are intended primarily for use by financial institutions rather than the general public. Unlike retail CBDCs, which are designed for everyday transactions, wholesale CBDCs are used for interbank settlements and large-sum payments.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the de facto central bank, announce The sandbox was announced on Wednesday and detailed that it would initially focus on four areas: fixed income and investment funds, liquidity management, green and sustainable finance, and trade and supply chain finance.
The HKMA said: The sandbox is designed to facilitate interbank settlements using experimental tokenized money. Key participants include Bank of China, HSBC, Hang Seng Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Ant Digital, Hashkey, and Microsoft. Several asset managers (BlackRock, CSOP Asset Management, Franklin Templeton, China Asset Management)We also plan to participate in the Project Ensemble Sandbox.
The sandbox launch took place after the HKMA. Established In March, as part of Project Ensemble The second phase of the e-HKD pilot The examination will explore programmability, tokenization and atomic settlements related to CBDC. According to its website, the HKMA began researching CBDC in 2017 and began to focus more on studying potential e-HKD at wholesale and retail levels in 2021.
“Since the launch of Project Ensemble in March, we have been encouraged by the strong interest from the industry in pioneering innovative solutions to redefine the digital financial landscape,” Eddie Wee, chief executive of the HKMA, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The introduction of the Project Ensemble Sandbox to test tokenization use cases marks a significant step forward for the HKMA and the industry in exploring the application of tokenization in real-world business scenarios,” Wee added.
Ant Digital Technologies, the blockchain arm of Ant Group, is part of the sandbox. Said It aims to improve the efficiency of financing. For example, energy company Longshine Technology has digitized more than 9,000 charging piles into “real assets” (RWAs) through Ant Digital, and Longshine “successfully secured the first cross-border financing for RWA in Hong Kong,” Ant Digital added.
HashKey Group, a Hong Kong-based digital asset services company, also announced plans to test tokenization and trading of RWAs, including carbon credits, green assets, and money market funds. name.
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