Standard Chartered Bank, a prominent multinational bank based in Britain, has announced its involvement in the trial of China's digital renminbi central bank digital currency (CBDC) e-CNY, becoming one of the initial foreign banks to conduct such trials within China.
Through its collaborator City Bank Clearing Services Co, Standard Chartered Bank will enable its customers to purchase, exchange, and redeem e-renminbi within their bank accounts, according to an announcement made on November 27. Zhang Xiaolei, President of Standard Chartered Bank China, expressed optimism about the digital renminbi's growth potential, emphasizing the bank's 165-year history of presence and operation in the Chinese market.
Participating in China's e-renminbi CBDC pilot program, active in 26 provinces and cities, Standard Chartered aims to explore various avenues, including cross-border merchant payments, trade finance, and supply chain finance. Notably, last year, the bank was involved in the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge" proof-of-concept trial held in Hong Kong, focusing on delivering cross-border payment settlement services for both retail and corporate customers. In collaboration with PwC China, in May 2023, Standard Chartered Bank jointly released a report titled "Central Bank Digital Currency Creates a Future Banking Ecosystem," delving into the potential applications of CBDC in retail, trade, and supply chain finance domains.
The People’s Bank of China, on November 25, unveiled a white paper titled “Cross-border E-commerce Business-to-Business Digital RMB Application Solutions.” The paper urges commercial payment processors to incorporate e-yuan CBDC into consumer transactions. Since its inception in 2020, the e-renminbi has witnessed transaction volumes surpassing 1.8 trillion yuan ($253.6 billion), with the number of wallets surging to 120 million.
