The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has issued a discussion paper inviting views on the key issues around a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC).
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The city’s de facto central bank’s “e-HKD: A policy and design perspective” paper focuses on the policy and design issues related to a digital Hong Kong dollar.
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The authority is particularly studying the issuance mechanism, interoperability with other payment systems, privacy and data protection.
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The HKMA has previously studied the technical aspects of issuing a CBDC, findings of which were published in October last year. The resulting paper studied potential architectures and design options as it relates to the construction of the infrastructure for distributing e-HKD.
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Along with Hong Kong, the central banks of almost every major economy worldwide are engaged in study or development of CBDCs, in part as a means of future-proofing their currencies from potential threats posed by increased use of privately issued digital currencies.
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China is leading the way with its digital yuan – or eCNY – which had 260 million individual users as of January.
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Hong Kong maintains its own financial and judicial systems, among others, separately from the Chinese mainland as part of the “One Country, Two Systems” framework under which Hong Kong is governed.
