Visa completed the digital Hong Kong dollar trial with local banks

Payment processor Visa has completed a Hong Kong Monetary Authority Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) pilot program with HSBC and Hang Seng Bank.

In the year In an announcement made on November 1, the e-HKD program will include deposit booking, where money deposited in the bank will be withdrawn from the company's own blockchain ledger. As part of his key findings, Visa wrote:

“As confirmed by our pilot test between banks, the completion time of interbank transfers is now close. Tokenized deposits are burned on the sender's bank's ledger, placed on the recipient's bank's register, and at the same time interbank with a simulated bulk CBCC layer.”

Visa also said during the pilot that the platform is 24/7, outperforming traditional payment systems that don't work after hours or on weekends.

“Our experiment was completed using blockchain networks that are globally available and supported by groups in other time zones,” he wrote. Meanwhile, tokenized deposits are distributed encrypted, allowing them to be viewed on blockchain browsers but not revealing participants' identities, balances, or transaction amounts to non-bank users.

For the next steps, the payment processor says it's looking into tokenized asset markets and programmable finance. For example, in this pilot “Property Payments” use case, payments from a buyer who transfers the remaining tokens to the property developer can be automated. Reducing the closing time of the process and reaching the contract completion date,” Visa wrote. Following the successful results of the e-HKD pilot program, it will enter phase two.

Related: Visa to invest $100M in generative AI