Press release
Standard Chartered China participates in e-CNY business pilot
Shanghai – Standard Chartered Bank (China) Limited (“Standard Chartered China”) announced today that the Bank has participated in the e-CNY business pilot, providing customers with e-CNY related services such as e-CNY wallet top-ups and redemption through accessing e-CNY applications.
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is an electronic form of central bank money that can be used by retail clients and businesses to make payments and store value. China was one of the first countries in the world to research and pilot a central bank digital currency at scale.
Since the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) launched the e-CNY pilot, it has continued to increase the number of areas covered, enrich the applications scenarios, and expand transaction volumes. Currently, there are 26 e-CNY pilot regions, covering most regions of the country, and cross-border applications and innovative exploration are steadily progressing.
Jerry Zhang, Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Standard Chartered China, Cluster Chief Executive Officer (China & Japan), commented: “We are very pleased to participate in the e-CNY business pilot. As an important infrastructure for the digital economy, the e-CNY will enhance the payment and consumption experience and strengthen the connection between China and international financial markets. As an international bank rooted in China for 165 years, Standard Chartered is optimistic about the development prospects of e-CNY. We expect the application scenarios of e-CNY will expand to include cross-border merchant payment, trade finance and supply chain finance, which will empower us to continuously provide quality services to meet the needs of both individual and corporate customers, and to inject new momentum into the development of the real economy.”
Standard Chartered has been actively participating in several CBDC initiatives across its footprint, including the construction of the e-CNY ecosystem and exploring innovative application scenarios for CBDCs, including e-CNY (see Notes to Editors).
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For further information please contact:
Preston Zhu
Standard Chartered
+86 21 3851 8628
Notes to Editors
Examples of previous CBDC initiatives:
- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s testing of its Faster Payment System to top up e-CNY wallets[1]. The pilot is only for retail clients in Hong Kong.
- September 2022, Standard Chartered Bank (Hong Kong) Limited participated in the Multi-CBDC Bridge (mBridge) proof of concept pilot run, alongside central banks of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE. The pilot programme utilised the mBridge infrastructure to execute wholesale cross-border settlement for real transactions. The success of this pilot run proved the possibility to support multi-scenario payment and settlement services for enterprises’ cross-border trade through CBDC.
- May 2022, Standard Chartered and PwC China jointly released the report “Co-creating the future ecosystem of banking with CBDCs”. This report explores the opportunities of CBDCs within commercial scenarios in the retail, trade, and supply chain finance domains, and examines how existing retail customer loyalty models and supply chain finance solutions could be further improved by CBDCs[2].
Standard Chartered is one of the oldest international banks in China, with our first branch in Shanghai set up in 1858 and continuous operations thereafter. We were among the first batch of international banks locally incorporated in China in April 2007. We have outlets across nearly 30 coastal and in-land cities in China, a testimony of our long-term commitment to China.
[1] Source: Hong Kong Monetary Authority – Howard Lee on The Fourth Anniversary of the FPS – from person-to-person to merchant and cross-border payments (hkma.gov.hk)
[2] Link for full report: av.sc.com/cn/en/content/docs/cn-gba-a-whitepaper-on-CBDCs-in-the-greater-bay-area-and-beyond.pdf