The People’s Bank of China was one of the pioneers in testing the digital national currency, and experiments were not limited to the domestic market. The first phase of the tests with the involvement of the Hong Kong monetary authorities ended successfully, and now the latter are expressing their readiness to expand the experiment.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which effectively acts as the central bank of this Special Administrative Region of China, has begun discussions on further action with the People’s Bank of China. Representatives from Hong Kong expressed their readiness to expand testing of the digital yuan in the field of cross-border payments.

According to experts, Hong Kong’s interest in switching to settlements in the digital yuan can be explained by the desire to reduce the cost of cross-border payments when trading with China. Last year, such costs ranged from $ 20 billion to $ 40 billion, which corresponds to about 11% of Hong Kong’s gross domestic product. If the transition to settlements in the digital yuan will reduce at least some of these costs, then it will be beneficial to the regional authorities.