Secured Lending Application Selected for HKMA's Inaugural e-HKD Pilot Programme for Retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Assessment

• The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has selected a secured lending application of e-HKD for the inaugural e-HKD pilot programme
• The proposed solution is led by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), HKT Payment Limited and ZA Bank, who will partner with paywith.glass and Venture Smart Financial Holdings Limited (VSFG) as a consortium during the pilot
• The e-HKD Pilot Programme is in line with HKMA's three-rail approach, announced in September 2022, aimed at preparing for potential e-HKD implementation

Hong Kong SAR - Media OutReach - 18 May 2023 - The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has shortlisted a financial solution in a secured lending product backed by tokenized real assets for participation in the inaugural e-HKD Pilot Programme. This proposed solution is led by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), HKT Payment Limited and ZA Bank. They will be joined by paywith.glass and Venture Smart Financial Holdings Limited (VSFG) as a consortium to collectively develop and evaluate this application, leveraging the potential programmability feature of e-HKD.

The consortium will bring together key players from various industry verticals to foster long-term e-HKD development, leveraging their collective cross-industry experience and ensuring a diverse range of perspectives. The initial focus will be on leveraging e-HKD's potential features to empower new applications in a secured lending product, as part of the e-HKD Pilot Programme.

The e-HKD Pilot Programme is part of HKMA's strategic three-rail approach to prepare for potential e-HKD implementation. Rail 1 focuses on establishing the necessary technological and legal foundations, while Rail 2, running concurrently with Rail 1, is aimed at conducting in-depth exploration of e-HKD use cases and addressing implementation and design issues. Rail 3 concerns the rollout of e-HKD.

Saurabh Tripathi, Managing Director & Senior Partner and Global Leader of Financial Institutions Practice at BCG remarked: "We are thrilled to support the impressive e-HKD development in Hong Kong. Retail Central Banking Digital Currency (CBDC) is a significant development in the financial system, and we're eager to share our expertise to support the exploration of e-HKD benefits for retail use cases."

Susanna Hui, Group Managing Director at HKT, stated: "As an advocate of FinTech and digital economy, HKT is delighted to be a partner of this project and leverage our experience from Tap & Go to facilitate Web3.0 development and explore potential e-HKD use cases in Hong Kong."

Paul Sisnett, CEO & Co-Founder at paywith.glass, commented: "We are dedicated to apply our experience from other markets to support the use case development of e-HKD through the e-HKD Pilot Programme."

Lawrence Chu, Co-Founder & Group Executive Chairman at VSFG, stated: "Introducing an enhanced form of money requires meticulous planning. We anticipate this cross-industry collaboration will generate valuable data to facilitate e-HKD assessment."

Ronald Iu, CEO of ZA Bank, shared: "ZA Bank has always been at the forefront of Hong Kong's FinTech development. It is an honor to team up with leading industry players to support the HKMA's e-HKD initiative. This also marks another step of our journey towards the 'Banking for Web3' ambition for building an inclusive financial ecosystem."

Hashtag: #PCCW #HKT #eHKD #DigitalEconomy #SmartCityDevelopment #web3

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