After becoming one of the first countries in the world to begin testing CBDCs, China is expanding trials to accommodate more lenders. Standard Chartered China has become the latest bank to join China’s CBDC pilot, which is currently at an advanced stage. What this essentially means is that the Asian country’s Standard Chartered bank will now integrate its platform with a special Chinese app dedicated to CBDC, allowing users to access a digital version of the Chinese yuan.
CBDC, or central bank digital currency, is a blockchain representation of fiat currency. Transactions through CBDC are expected to not only reduce dependence on paper bills, but also make transaction details transparent and tamper-proof. Along with the digital Yuan, China’s CBDC is also recognized as e-CNY or digital RMB (Renminbi).
Standard Chartered is now one of the world’s largest multinational banks participating in CBDC trials.
“As an important infrastructure of the digital economy, the development of the digital yuan will gradually improve payment and consumption experiences and strengthen interconnections with international financial markets,” the bank said in an official statement on November 27.
Last July, the Bank of China began testing an offline payment system that would work integrated with SIM cards. Once activated, this offline payment system requires users to simply bring their phone close to a point-of-sale terminal to initiate a CBDC payment.
Around April 2022, China conducted CBDC trials in 23 cities, including Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen. Residents of these cities are permitted, and indeed encouraged, to pay for goods and services via e-CNY.
“Standard Chartered expects to continue to expand the application scenarios of the digital yuan, including cross-border merchant payments, trade finance and supply chain finance, to continue to meet the needs of individual and corporate customers,” the bank added in a statement. Yes.
Meanwhile, India, Japan, and the United States are among other countries in advanced stages of CBDC-related research and development plans. They aim to diversify people’s choices in terms of financial payments.
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