PBoC Denies Any Possibility of Launching China’s Digital Cryptocurrency By November

25. Sep 2019 Posted by Akolkar B on News

Over the last few months, there have been strong reports circulating that China is all set to launch its central bank digital currency (CBDC) by November 2019.

However, as per the latest report by China’s local news publication Global Times, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has released an official statement saying that the claims of November launch for China’s CBDC are nothing but “inaccurate speculations”.

The central bank has further added that it update the status of the progress made in the CBDC project “in due time”. Besides, the report also mention other participants in the CBDC Project apart from PBoC. Some of them include the Bank of China, ICBC, the Agriculture Bank of China, along with other technology companies like UnionPay, Alibaba, and Tencent.

Even though the central bank has downplayed the chances of a November launch, there’s no doubt in it that it is aggressively working on the CBDC project. China’s move with launching its own digital currency to counter any potential competition posed by Facebook’s Libra, in the future.

Ever since Facebook released the Libra whitepaper in June 2019, China’s PBoC has put the CBDC project on fast track. The PBoC officials have been on record accepting that the Chinese CBDC will help to protect the country’s financial sovereignty against any external competition.

Speaking at the Digital Currency Research Institute earlier this month, PBoC’s deputy director Mu Changchun said: "Why is the central bank still doing such a digital currency today when electronic payment methods are so developed? It is to protect our monetary sovereignty and legal currency status. We need to plan ahead for a rainy day.”

Although China has banned other public cryptocurrencies almost two years back, the Digital Yuan will be a “legal digital currency” backed by the state government.

The Chinese central bank digital currency will also be advanced in comparison to other stablecoins available in the market, as claimed by the PBoC deputy director.

Mu said that users can transfer it without internet network or an account. The user’s mobile phone just needs to have a wallet and the user can transfer money to others using NFC communication by placing the two physical devices nearby. “Even Libra can’t do this,” Mu added.