- They tested the technology on 2100 clients
- Blockchain payments have shown great convenience
- However, there are difficulties with their implementation.
Bank of Hong Kong BOC completed the second phase of testing the e-yuan for cross-border payments. The experiment has been running since December last year, with more than 2,100 clients participating.
Recently, the bank reported on the results of the tests. It turns out that customers were mostly spending eCNY on the mainland and not in Hong Kong itself. Such tokens have become especially popular in small regular payments. For example, buying fast food or retail.
Now BOC plans to expand the experiment and explore more use cases for digital money.
Implementation issues
The bank spoke about the difficulties that customers faced during eCNY testing. For example, some shops simply refused to accept electronic yuan, although they are required by law to do so. There have been cases when retail outlets have terminals for eCNY, but the cashiers themselves could not figure out the technology for a long time.
Now a new stage of verification of cross-border payments in electronic yuan has started. There are four big Chinese banks involved, including Bank of China, HSBC, Hang Seng and Standard Chartered.
Recently, Hong Kong announced that it is preparing to roll out a retail CBDC. But it will not be an electronic yuan, but a digital currency e-HKD (Hong Kong dollar). Tokens are intended for use within the city.