Cross-Border CBDC Payment System Announced by Chinese Blockchain Firm

• Chinese blockchain firm develops new CBDC payments system.
• The new platform will not allow any decentralized cryptos.
• There has been no mention of China’s own digital yuan in the whitepaper.

Hong Kong-based blockchain company Red Date Technology has introduced a new digital payments system that aims to connect the two sectors of stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). The firm introduced the payments system dubbed the Universal Digital Payment Network (UDPN), on Thursday, during the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 conference in Davos, Switzerland.

UDPN is being developed in collaboration with GFT Technologies, a tech engineering company, and TOKO, a digital asset production engine from DLA Piper, a law firm. The UDPN whitepaper describes itself as a (Distributed ledger technology) DLT platform that would facilitate stablecoin and CBDC transactions in a manner analogous to the SWIFT network for banks.

Addressing about the project, the Universal Digital Payments Network’s whitepaper stated:

Just as the SWIFT network created the original common standard for messaging between financial institutions across different settlement systems, the UDPN will serve the same purpose for the emerging generation of CBDCs and stablecoins.

The white paper further revealed that decentralized cryptos cannot be used with the UDPN. “No unregulated public-chain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, will be accepted,” the paper highlighted.

Furthermore, Red Date claims that beginning in January and running through June, a number of major financial institutions will participate in a series of proof-of-concept experiments. Participating financial institutions may include Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and the Bank of East Asia.

Red Date Technology is also responsible for building the state’s blockchain-based service network (BSN). As a result, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is expected to exert significant control over it. China’s eCNY (digital yuan) CBDC was not included in the white paper. Moreover, the whitepaper does not mention Red Date’s term as the project’s leader nor China’s own CBDC ambitions with its digital yuan.

Post Views: 61