Cyberport has announced its enthusiastic support of Project Ensemble, a brand-new wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (wCBDC) initiative from the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to promote the development of tokenised deposits and assets in Hong Kong. In particular, Cyberport will encourage community start-ups to participate in the wCBDC Sandbox. This essential outreach will hone the cultivation of homegrown FinTech innovations and drive the development of next-generation financial market infrastructure, such as digital asset settlement engines.
HashKey, a leading end-to-end digital asset financial services group and member of the Cyberport community company, is one of the first participants in Project Ensemble. The company is eager to explore ideas for an interoperable technical framework and design solutions for tokenised asset issuance and management. These critical components will contribute to the robustness and security of the wCBDC network.
This latest collaboration is part of a series of partnerships involving Cyberport, its community members, and the HKMA. In recent years, community company ConsenSys took part in HKMA’s Project mBridge, which experimented with a cross-border CBDC payment platform. Meanwhile, Cyberport joined the HKMA e-HKD Pilot Programme, implemented the FinTech Supervisory Sandbox 3.1 Pilot, and hosted the AMLab series to advance RegTech adoption.
Eric Chan, Chief Public Mission Officer of Cyberport, shared his passion for the partnership: “We’re excited to expand our successful alliance with the HKMA and drive the widespread development of CBDC. This is an opportunity to improve the cross-jurisdictional interoperability of this digital currency and involve more international players. Hong Kong’s potential in tokenisation and enterprise adoption of blockchain technologies points to a promising future. I have great confidence that by participating in the new wCBDC Sandbox, our Web3 and virtual assets community members will contribute to and benefit from a wider range of applications and use cases, which will empower them to explore and experiment with innovative features that enhance the efficiency, liquidity, and transparency of our capital markets.”
Cyberport currently comprises more than 400 FinTech start-ups and over 220 Web3 companies, representing the largest FinTech and Web3 clusters in Hong Kong. These start-ups and companies specialise in areas such as digital assets, payments, remittance, and real world asset tokenisation.
He reiterated Cyberport’s commitment to supporting start-ups and fostering industry development, which is vital for strengthening Hong Kong’s position as the international financial centre and propelling the city towards becoming an international innovation and technology hub.
