Hong Kong Financial Secretary: The first phase of the Currency Bridge project is expected to be launched this year

ChainCatcher news, according to a report by Caixin, the Financial Secretary of the Hong Kong SAR Government, Paul Chan, mentioned the latest developments of the digital Hong Kong dollar and digital renminbi during the release of the 2024-2025 "Budget".

In terms of digital finance, Chan stated that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority completed the first phase of the pilot program for the "digital Hong Kong dollar" (i.e., "e-HKD") last October, researching various local retail use cases, such as programmable payments, offline payments, tokenized deposits, etc. The second phase of the trial is about to start, further exploring new use cases. Another key initiative, the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge" (mBridge, also known as the "Currency Bridge Project"), has also made progress, with the first phase of services expected to launch this year, becoming one of the first projects globally to settle cross-border transactions for enterprises using multilateral central bank digital currencies.

In addition, the pilot scope of the digital renminbi will be expanded in Hong Kong, allowing citizens to conveniently open and use digital renminbi wallets, and to add value through Hong Kong's rapid retail payment system "Faster Payment System", further enhancing cross-border payment efficiency and user experience.