Hong Kong needs at least two years to build wholesale CBDC: HKMA

The Hong Kong Mon­e­tary Author­i­ty (HKMA), the city’s de-fac­to cen­tral bank, Tues­day said it con­clud­ed its mar­ket con­sul­ta­tions on tech­ni­cal and pol­i­cy grounds towards the city’s cen­tral bank dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy (CBDC), esti­mat­ing at least two to three years to build the whole­sale system. 

See relat­ed arti­cle: Hong Kong flirts with e‑HKD as it talks of mar­riage with e‑CNY

Fast facts

• A whole­sale CBDC is an inter­bank set­tle­ment lay­er, which lays the foun­da­tion for the future launch of a retail CBDC, known as the e‑HKD in Hong Kong.
• The HKMA is expect­ed to release a work plan for the whole­sale lay­er in about nine months. 

• On the legal front, the HKMA said it will be work­ing with the gov­ern­ment to enact required amend­ments, but has not spec­i­fied a tar­get final­iza­tion date.

• The whole­sale CBDC is set to lay the foun­da­tion for the HKMA’s research in e‑HKD use cas­es, includ­ing a dig­i­tal wal­let, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, tok­enized secu­ri­ties set­tle­ment and poten­tial inte­gra­tion to decen­tral­ized finance. 

See relat­ed arti­cle: A Hong Kong CBDC is com­ing — for institutions