A digital wallet produced by fintech company, RD Wallet Technologies, will integrate banking and e-commerce applications that enable traditional cross-border payments to be made as well as crypto.
Digital wallets have a fragmented place amongst Hong Kong’s cash-legacy economy much like mainland Europe and the rest of the world excited about wallets but still fine-tuning their openness on standards and technical interoperability while even navigating the potential to intermix real and cryptocurrencies.
With 9 in 10 consumers having used a digital wallet, China has been just as receptive to digital credentials but enwrapped in the necessary licensing requirements.
A taskforce was first assembled in 2014 to study a course of direction for the development of a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and Hong Kong’s readiness in issuing a CBDC to retail and e-commerce set the trend going across the world. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority in 2022 embarked on the e-HKD Pilot Programme, which called on participants for prototyping and testing of electronic versions of bank notes within the e-wallet entity to make any retail purchases.
Just in October 2023, the HKMA formed the CBDC Expert Group for creating policies and nurturing technical cohesion of cryptocurrencies across wallets through partnership and knowledge exchange on CBDC research. This
With no national wallet, bankers like the fintech founder, Norman Chan Tak-lam, or other firms focused on stablecoins or Web 3.0 could emerge in the near future, but China is looking to stabilise the emerging digital banking space at least by 2024.
The RD Wallet will see other fintechs pushed to innovate China’s economy further into a financial capital of the world, converting multiple dominant currencies: the Hong Kong dollar, the yuan, the US dollar, the yen and the euro.
A stored-value facility licence for the RD wallet came into effect in December, giving the final approval from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) in April.
