The former vice-chair of the People’s Bank of China’s National Council for Social Security Fund, Wang Zhongmin, revealed that China has completed the backend architecture development of its central bank-back digital currency. The former senior PBoC official Wang announced the development during the online 2020 Fintech Forum organized by Tencent Fintech Research Institute and the Fintech 50 Forum in Beijing. China is currently testing its digital yuan in four cities by collaborating with several multi-national companies.
“The pandemic has increased competition in the digital currency space.”
With so many cryptocurrencies already in existence and in development, China is seeking to create a payment infrastructure in which these currencies can co-exist with centralized digital currencies. The former PBoC official believes that such a system will create an environment in the digital currency space for healthier competition and cooperation. According to Wang, the ongoing global pandemic has increased competition in the digital currency space with more tech giants and governments take an interest in creating a better digital payment infrastructure. Wang also commented on the development of Libra, through which Facebook is trying social media-based digital wallets.
Central banks around the world are researching CBDCs.
China is all set to become the first major nation to develop a centralized digital currency dubbed as DCEP. As reported earlier, China is looking to accelerate the process of issuing CBDC to offer post-COVID 19 stimulus. However, The People’s Bank of China is not the only central bank that is actively working on its CBDC. Several other banks around the world are looking into creating their own CBDC. Earlier, the central bank of Canada had posted a job opening for its CBDC project manager. The Italian Banking Association had expressed their interest in piloting a digital currency backed by the European Central Bank. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin thinks differently. He said that it not possible for countries to have digital currencies as they operate beyond borders.
