Hong Kong Will Launch a New Wholesale CBDC Project

The central bank of Hong Kong has announced the initiation of a wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC) project with the aim of supporting the growth of the tokenization market.

The project, known as Project Ensemble, will focus on exploring innovative financial market infrastructure (FMI) to enable seamless interbank settlement of tokenized money through wCBDC.

This will initially entail a focus on tokenized deposits, according to a statement released by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Thursday.

The HKMA has been looking into wholesale CBDCs since 2017 and officially began exploring the possibility of a retail CBDC in 2021.