The Agricultural Bank of China has launched pilot ATMs that enable customers in Shenzhen to deposit and withdraw money in the form of digital yuan, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Blockchain
Dynamo Kyiv to reward soccer fans with digital tokens
Fans of Ukrainian football team Dynamo Kyiv will soon be able to earn digital tokens that they can store in a mobile wallet and spend in-person at the team’s stadium and online at its digital marketplace... More
PBOC pilots contactless cards and wearables that let consumers make payments with China’s digital currency
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has expanded its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to include a contactless ‘hard wallet’ and NFC wearables that enable consumers to make in-store and transit fare payments with their digital yuan... More
Researchers leverage NFC and blockchain to tackle fraud in the rare whisky trade
Collectors, retailers and auction houses will soon be able to authenticate bottles of rare vintage whisky by using their smartphone to tap an anti-tamper NFC bottle closure that connects to a digital certification record held on a private blockchain... More
Visa proposes CBDC protocol that lets consumers exchange digital cash via Bluetooth or NFC
Visa has published a research paper exploring an offline payment system (OPS) protocol for central bank digital currencies (CBDC) that would enable users to make digital payments to other users even when both sender and recipient are temporarily offline or unable to connect to a bank, payment network or other intermediary... More
In-vehicle payments forecast to reach US$1bn by 2023
The total transaction value of in-vehicle payments will reach US$1bn by 2023, up from less than US$100m in 2020, according to a forecast by Gartner... More
PBOC to trial online and offline payment functions in second digital yuan red envelope giveaway
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to enable participants in the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to test for the first time the use of digital yuan for making both online purchases and touch-based in-store offline payments... More
Economists propose single global digital currency
A single global retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and a single global 24/7 payment system could be an “optimum solution” as the basis for a new payment model “enhancing market discipline and fairness to all stakeholders”, according to a new paper... More
Facebook digital currency researchers publish ultra high-speed payments paper
A digital transaction settlement system being developed by researchers working on Facebook’s Novi cryptocurrency digital wallet app could support up to 160,000 transactions per second, “about 7x the peak transaction rate of the Visa payments network”, according to a paper published by the research team... More
China to maintain central database of all digital currency transactions
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will keep a database of all transactions made using the digital yuan, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to China Daily... More
Spanish banks to launch digital ID platform
Spanish consumers are set to be able to self-manage their digital identity on their mobile device using a blockchain-enabled platform being developed by a consortium of 10 companies that includes leading Spanish banks Banco Santander, Bankia, CaixaBank, and Liberbank... More
European Central Bank launches public consultation on digital euro
The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched an online survey that enables consumers and industry experts to express their priorities, preferences and concerns about the issuance of a digital euro as a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and means of payment in the euro area... More
Huawei integrates digital yuan hardware wallets into Mate 40 NFC smartphone
Owners of Huawei’s Mate 40 in China will be able to make transactions in digital yuan from a central bank digital currency (CBDC) hardware wallet built into the soon-to-be-released smartphone... More
PBOC reports first counterfeit digital currency wallets
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has “found counterfeit digital yuan wallets on the market,” the head of the bank’s digital currency research institute Mu Changchun has revealed... More
JPMorgan begins digital currency test
JPMorgan Chase’s JPM Coin digital currency is now being used commercially for cross-border payments by “a large international technology company”, the US banking giant’s Takis Georgakopoulos has told CNBC... More
Russia launches public consultation on digital ruble
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has begun a public consultation on the launch of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) that would allow citizens to use “mobile devices and other media” to make payments using a digital ruble... More
Central bank launches digital currency in the Bahamas
Citizens of the Bahamas can now make payments and transfers from a digital wallet using the country’s Sand Dollar central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Shenzhen residents spend nearly 9m digital yuan during CBDC pilot
China’s ‘red envelope’ lottery giveaway of digital yuan to 50,000 residents of Shenzhen resulted in 62,788 transactions with a total value of 8.764m yuan (US$1.32m) during the week-long central bank digital currency (CBDC) test in the city... More
JCB, Mizuho Bank and Fujitsu to test blockchain-based identity exchange technology for securing transactions
One hundred employees of Japanese tech giant Fujitsu are taking part in a four-month trial of a blockchain-based interoperable identity verification system that “enables secure transactions involving sensitive user ID information between companies and industries”... More
Bank of Japan to test central bank digital currency
The Bank of Japan is to begin the first phase of proof-of-concept testing of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in early 2021, according to a statement published by the bank... More