Taiwan builds CBDC prototype platform, plans hearings for next year
Quick Take The Block has confirmed that Taiwan’s central bank governor will present a CBDC research report in parliament on Wednesday. The central bank started to research a potential central bank digital currency in 2019.
Taiwan has built a prototype platform for a potential central bank digital currency . It plans to hold multiple hearings and forums next year as its central bank continues to study and develop a CBDC.
Taiwan’s Central Bank Governor, Chin-Long Yang, said in a research report on Sunday that building a digital currency isn’t an international competition and that the central bank has yet to set a fixed timeline for CBDC issuance, according to a report from the semi-official Central News Agency.
Yang is scheduled to present the report on Wednesday about the CBDC development progress at the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s parliament, the office of the parliament’s finance committee chair told The Block.
The report said the central bank had developed a CBDC prototype platform with a two-tier issuance structure. Initially, the CBDC would be non-interest bearing, and CBDC wallets may come in both anonymous and registered types, according to the report.
On the retail front, the central bank said that the prototype platform has increased its processing speed to 20,000 transactions per second. The central bank also plans to develop the CBDC at the wholesale level, which could be used as a clearing asset for asset tokenization.
Taiwan started studying CBDCs in 2019 and has completed two stages of testing. The central bank has taken a “prudent approach” toward the issuance of a potential CBDC, the governor said.
The central bank added that cryptocurrency and stablecoins are not part of the CBDC research, as those assets are separate from the digital currency system. The crypto industry remains largely unregulated in Taiwan, with the financial regulator requiring crypto service providers to comply with anti-money laundering laws.
Last month, the local crypto sector officially established an industry association to formulate self-supervisory rules under the government’s guidelines. The Ministry of Justice has also proposed amendments to the existing AML laws that would require domestic and overseas crypto firms seeking to operate in Taiwan to register for AML compliance. Failure to do so could result in imprisonment for up to two years.
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