Hong Kong Chief Executive proposes statutory licensing for VASPs in his policy address

The Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, John Lee, mentioned a measure to suggest establishing a statutory licensing authorities for virtual plus providers successful his 2022 argumentation code delivered connected Oct.19.

The argumentation code besides mentions The Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s (HKMA), the city’s de-facto cardinal bank, efforts towards carrying retired marketplace consultations connected the regularisation of stablecoins and plans to align planetary regulatory standards and section discourse with the upcoming regulatory regime.

The argumentation code besides acknowledged the HKMA laying the groundwork for the aboriginal motorboat of the city’s retail cardinal slope integer currency (CBDC), “e-HKD,” and collaborating with Mainland stakeholders to grow the investigating of China’s CBDC, “e-CNY.”

HKMA’s progress

So far, the HKMA has already conducted 2 retired of the 3 rounds of marketplace consultation. The feedback has registered enactment among its participants, who besides pointed retired concerns regarding privacy, ineligible considerations, and usage cases of e-HKD, according to a blog station published by the de-facto cardinal slope connected Sept. 20.

The HKMA said it volition follow a three-rail attack to integrate marketplace feedback into the improvement of e-HKD. Rail 1 volition impact laying the ineligible and technological foundations for creating the wholesale furniture of the two-tier e-HKD system. Rail 2, which runs successful parallel with Rail 1, volition screen the usage cases and application, implementation, and plan via a bid of trial pilots, portion Rail 3 volition spot the motorboat of the e-HKD.

The HKMA has not issued a motorboat day oregon clip framework for the e-HKD. However, it estimates it volition instrumentality 2 to 3 years to physique the wholesale strategy and expects to present the enactment program for the wholesale furniture successful June 2023.

Hong Kong volition besides proceed experimenting with connecting e-CNY with its home payments web since June. This latest proceedings volition research ways Hong Kong citizens tin apical up an e-CNY integer wallet utilizing the city’s faster outgo strategy via mobile phones.

The HKMA has besides concluded an inter-government cross-border CBDC project, titled the Multiple CBDC Bridge (mBridge), with the Bank of International Settlements, the cardinal banks of Thailand, China, and the United Arab Emirates.

On Oct. 4, 2021, the HKMA released a whitepaper titled “e-HKD: A method perspective” to research imaginable method plan options for issuing and distributing retail CBDCs.

The station Hong Kong Chief Executive proposes statutory licensing for VASPs successful his argumentation address appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.