Hong Kong Establishes Working Group for Tokenization Standards and Wholesale CBDC

Hong Kong has established the "Project Ensemble Architecture Community," a working group aimed at developing standards for the tokenization market, particularly for wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) use. The group, which includes the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the Securities and Futures Commission, the BIS Innovation Hub Hong Kong Centre, the CBDC Expert Group, and several private sector members such as Bank of China (Hong Kong), Hang Seng Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered Hong Kong, HashKey Group, Ant Digital Technologies, and Microsoft Hong Kong, will focus on supporting interoperability among wholesale CBDC, tokenized money, and tokenized assets. The HKMA plans to make recommendations on topics such as establishing a mechanism for seamless interbank settlement of tokenized deposits through wholesale CBDC for tokenized asset transactions. The working group will also facilitate the design and implementation of Project Ensemble, a wholesale CBDC project launched by the HKMA in March. The HKMA has been testing its CBDC and is currently in the second phase of the e-HKD pilot, which is expected to run until mid-2025. Hong Kong began researching CBDCs in 2017 and has recently increased its focus on studying a potential e-HKD at both wholesale and retail levels.

Sources :
- TheBlock