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Taiwan issued its first virtual banking licenses to three consortiums led by Taiwan and Japanese investors, its financial authorities said on Tuesday, following moves by regulators in other Asian markets to issue such licenses.

Taiwan has completed trials of its prototype retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) in technical simulations. Taiwan started to study and test a retail CBDC in September 2020, and the central bank has engaged with at least Taiwanese five commercial banks in the proof-of-concept (POC) work. Next steps are to educate the public on purported benefits, draw up regulations and put in place a sound legal framework, before proceeding to a public pilot.

The Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) has completed a technical feasibility study for a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and is planning retail CBDC pilots to follow up on the proof-of-concept completed in 2022. Supporting tokenization is a main motivation for the wholesale CBDC work, including providing an anchor for tokenized deposits, stablecoins and a unified ledger, plus an additional payment option in a tokenized world. The retail CBDC work will include researching an offline solution. https://www.cbc.gov.tw/tw/cp-302-164924-0423d-1.html

Taiwan is reportedly looking to complete trials of its prototype central bank digital currency (CBDC) by the third quarter of 2022. Its most recent design is a two-tier system that allows consumers to exchange bank deposits with digital currency. In addition, the CBDC can also be linked to credit and debit cards and will be legal tender.

[On June 18, 2020] the Central Bank of Taiwan announced a multi-phase approach to central bank digital currency (CBDC) research, starting with retail CBDC in the first half of 2020 and moving to distributed ledger technology (DLT) based wholesale CBDC in the third quarter of 2020.

The President of the Central Bank of the Republic of China (CBRC), Yang Chin-long, said that developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is not a competition and that the central bank is focused on steady progress over speed. Yang said the central bank is conducting experiments in three scenarios to enhance domestic payment efficiency and innovation, retail and wholesale CBDC and the application of tokenization technology to digitally transform wholesale CBDC and commercial bank currency, supporting various asset tokens. The CBRC is also conducting proofs-of-concept and collaborating with participating banks to build a common platform for tokenization. https://www.cbc.gov.tw/tw/cp-302-170834-8653d-1.html

Taiwan's Central Bank of the Republic of China (CBRC) reportedly may start testing a CBDC prototype in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Affairs "digital voucher" system at the end of 2024 or early 2025. The Taiwanese government has previously issued stimulus vouchers to boost consumption. In the planned pilot, the Ministry would oversee voucher distribution, while the central bank would manage the subsequent payment and settlement operations after users spend the digital vouchers from their wallets. A local media source said that the digital voucher system could commence testing in August and go live in October. The CBDC prototype would not employ blockchain or smart contracts.

Some markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan already have sufficiently high limits. Australia and New Zealand have raised their limits, effective April 9, and the Philippines will increase its limit on July 17. Still other markets are at a more exploratory stage in their deliberations and Mastercard stands ready to support them as initial discussions build momentum for action.

JPMorgan has filed a request with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to approve a debt instrument linked to 11 firms that have all invested in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets. The debt instrument will enable investors to have direct exposure to a basket of cryptocurrency-focused firms. 68% of the "Basket" will be made up of MicroStrategy, Square, Riot Blockchain, and NVIDIA. Other companies that are included in the debt instrument are PayPal, Advanced Micro Devices, Taiwan Semiconductor Company, Intercontinental Exchange, CME Group, Overstock.com and Silvergate Capital.

Chinese crypto-asset exchange Huobi announced that it has stopped account registration for new customers in mainland China and will close down the accounts for existing mainland Chinese users by December 31. Huobi had already been scaling back its operations and product offerings in China. In July, Huobi closed its Beijing Huobi Network Technology entity and tightened over-the-counter trading restrictions. The exchange, in June, stopped offering crypto derivatives trading to users in China and Taiwan. The exchange had also stopped hosting Bitcoin mining services and providing leverage trading.