More than nine in 10 consumers in Nigeria (91%) and six in 10 consumers in Indonesia (60%) would be likely to use a central bank digital currency (CBDC) compared with less than 24% in the US and 14% in Germany, according to a report by Giesecke+Devrient and the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF)... More
Central bank digital currency (CBDC)
Japanese banks gear up to test digital currency
A consortium of more than 70 leading banks, financial services providers and other businesses in Japan is to conduct a series of proof of concept (PoC) trials of a digital currency supported by commercial banks across a range of specific use cases with the aim of rolling the currency out by the end of the 2022 fiscal year... More
Hong Kong Monetary Authority lays out technical design options for digital HK dollar
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has published a white paper that explores potential technical and design options for issuing and distributing retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and proposes a two-tier system as “one possible design” for a digital HK dollar or e-HKD... More
Central Bank of Nigeria issues nearly 500,000 eNaira wallets since launching CBDC
More than 488,000 consumers in Nigeria have downloaded an eNaira digital wallet and conducted transactions worth a total of 62m naira (US$151,000) in the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) since its launch in October, according to a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) spokesman... More
China puts pressure on McDonald’s, Visa and Nike to accept digital yuan
The Chinese government is reportedly putting pressure on US-based companies including McDonald’s, Visa and Nike to accept payments in digital yuan before the start of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics... More
Beijing offers public transport users discounts to encourage digital yuan fare payments
Passengers on bus, subway and suburban rail services in the Chinese capital Beijing can now receive a discount and pay as little as 0.01 yuan for their journey if they use the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to pay their fares from a digital yuan mobile wallet issued by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China... More
Chinese bike hire service to let customers use an NFC digital currency wallet to pay for their ride
Chinese e-commerce platform Meituan is to enable customers of its bicycle hire service to pay for their rides with the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) while offline using an NFC-enabled digital yuan hard wallet... More
Survey: ‘Growing number’ of Europeans support creation of national digital currencies independently of EU
A “growing number” of Europeans would support the creation of national digital currencies with the specific aim of asserting “some monetary independence” from the European Union, according to a survey commissioned by Euronews... More
Estonia’s central bank tests blockchain-powered digital euro solution
Eesti Pank, the central bank of Estonia, has tested a blockchain-powered technical solution for the use of a digital euro central bank digital currency (CBDC) that it says is capable of handling more than 300,000 simultaneous payments a second and enables payees to receive a payment in less than two seconds... More
People’s Bank of China issues digital yuan trial progress report
Nearly 21m (20.87m) personal and 3.51m corporate digital yuan wallets have so far been issued during China’s ongoing trials of its central bank digital currency (CBDC), the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has revealed... More
European Central Bank officially launches digital euro project
The European Central Bank (ECB) has officially launched its digital euro project with a two-year investigation into key issues regarding the design, distribution and use of a central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
China to launch digital yuan nationwide after 2022 Winter Olympics?
China could be ready to officially launch the digital yuan as a fully operational central bank digital currency (CBDC) after the Beijing Winter Olympics in early 2022, according to reports in the Chinese media... More
Beijing Rail Transit lets passengers pay their fares with digital yuan
Passengers on 24 subway lines and four suburban rail services in the Chinese capital of Beijing can now use the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) to make contactless payments for their fares from a digital yuan mobile wallet issued by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China... More
Beijing banks add support for digital yuan at 3,000 ATMs
Customers of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and the Agricultural Bank of China can now exchange cash for digital yuan and vice versa at more than 3,000 ATMs across Beijing, China, according to a report by the Xinhua news agency... More
China Construction Bank pilots biometric cards for digital currency payments
China Construction Bank (CCB) is piloting a biometric ‘hard wallet’ smart card that lets customers store digital yuan and authenticate payments made using the central bank digital currency (CBDC) with their fingerprint... More
PBOC: Chinese consumers will be able to store their digital currency in both physical and digital wallets
Chinese consumers can now open digital yuan wallets using different levels of customer identification depending on the transaction and balance limits they require and can activate wallets “with the lowest authority” with just their mobile phone number in line with the “principle of controllable anonymity”, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has revealed... More
Hong Kong to explore potential for digital HK dollar
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) is launching “a comprehensive study” that will explore the use cases, benefits and risks of developing a digital Hong Kong dollar as a central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
Bank of England sets out core principles for digital pound
Financial inclusion, creating a competitive ecosystem, comparison with other payment innovations, user privacy and monetary and financial stability will be the five core principles that guide the Bank of England’s future exploration and development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the UK, the financial institution has revealed... More
Riksbank extends e-krona pilot to real world test environments
Sweden’s central bank The Riksbank is to begin testing its e-krona central bank digital currency (CBDC) with external partners to assess how a digital krona would operate within a real world banking and payments infrastructure... More
Swift and Accenture lay out requirements for cross border CBDC payments infrastructure
Ensuring that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are interoperable and integrated with existing payment infrastructures are among the key requirements for their successful implementation in cross border transactions, according to a joint paper published by Swift and Accenture... More