Co-creating the future ecosystem of banking with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)

May 2023

Standard Chartered and PwC China have jointly launched a new whitepaper, ‘Co-creating the future ecosystem of banking with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs)’, illustrating the significant opportunities that CBDCs present to deliver innovative new services for both individuals and corporates in banking and other industries. In particular, the whitepaper explores the commercial applications of CBDCs – specifically, how their programmability feature can be leveraged to transform retail, as well as trade and supply chain finance.

The feasibility of using wholesale CBDCs for cross-border payments between central banks has already been tested through pilots such as mBridge – a joint project between the Bank for International Settlements Innovation Hub and four central banks. Studies and pilots around retail CBDCs are also underway in Mainland China, Hong Kong and a number of other jurisdictions. Most recently, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority commenced its e-HKD Pilot Programme with Standard Chartered as one of the participants selected based on its proposed use case of e-HKD in offline payment scenarios.

Against this background, the whitepaper looks into the next steps for CBDC development and the value that they could bring to digital payments. In particular, Standard Chartered and PwC China have studied the application of smart contracts to CBDCs, thereby enabling innovation and transforming business models.