上月末，香港启动了电子港币（e-HKD）的第二次试点项目，这款备受期待的数字货币旨在为市民提供更多支付选择。金融监管机构同时对项目名称进行了调整，“不仅旨在发行中央银行数字货币（CBDC），还有其他意义”，这是对推动城市居民使用新型支付方式的及时认可，即不仅仅是CBDC的目标。存款也可以被代币化。
新加坡便是这样思考并着手行动的。2021年宣布将实施CBDC计划后，新加坡采取了以区块链为基础推出可编程存款的方式（Digital Payment Token，简称DPT）。作为亚洲金融中心之一，新加坡在探索使用区块链技术来管理和优化存款上走在前列。这可能会影响全球支付领域的发展趋势。
数字货币像纸币取款机一样运作——一旦你决定提取金额，手机中的电子钱包就会赋予你消费权限，而不再依赖存放储蓄的金融机构，而是由央行负责。如果数字人民币受到大众广泛喜爱，银行可能会面临客户存款大幅减少的风险，并需要采取措施来控制这一趋势。如凯特琳·阿森马赫（Katrin Assenmacher）等研究人员对欧洲中央银行压力测试建模部门负责人提出的预测所示，在欧元区实施近3000欧元的每人限额有助于管理超额需求。
但也有可能，这个全新的支付工具在初期难以吸引用户。根据《南华早报》5月的一篇报道显示，尽管中国政府向国有企业员工发放了数字人民币（e-CNY），但大多数人都会立即将其兑换成现金。
存款代币对使用移动支付应用的用户来说并不会感觉有何不同，并且不会威胁到金融稳定。当购买者从其威士银行存折中提取10美元并花费代币时，这笔资金会在卖家的电子钱包中重新出现为等额的10美元。在卖家将余额划入花旗集团账户时，威士银行的责任结束，而花旗银行开始承担相应的责任。
即使所有储蓄和活期存款都转换为其加密形式，也不会改变银行业的负债或资产。使用区块链支付会更加快速便捷，特别是对于经常需要通过一系列代理银行完成的跨境转账交易而言。现在的费用约为**%。更大的优势将来自于智能合约（self-executing software code）——一种可以设置各种条件以触发支付并在向何人发放资金时生效的软件代码。新加坡最大的贷款机构星展集团（DBS Group Holdings Ltd.）利用分布式账本技术来简化政府对企业补助款的发放过程。一旦智能合约验证了满足付款条件，资金将自动拨付。
在香港，星展银行正在开发一个项目，允许企业使用假设的e-HKD与绿色产品进行交易。尽管这些定向忠诚计划无需中央银行发行CBDC就能实施，但其运行方式和效果完全相同。
存款代币在亚洲范围内具有巨大的创新潜力，并可能改变全球货币体系。上周，西班牙第二大银行BBVA宣布将成为Visa Inc.新的基于区块链的资产平台首批用户之一，这进一步证实了存款代币在全球范围内的影响力与作用。政府提供了保险机制以保护小额储蓄者，对于一般个人而言，在钱包中的10美元代币无论由哪家银行发行，其价值始终相同。
相比稳定币（stablecoins），存款代币在经济效率上可能更有优势。它们不需要全额储备的抵押物支持（如现金和政府债券等资产），因此相对于每年损失数十亿美元的加密货币来说风险更低。若结合智能合约技术，让代币更具社会益处，则可能进一步吸引更多的央行效仿新加坡，并无需推出零售型CBDC。
当前，服务于公众利益的私人资金已经足够好用，它正展现出经济上和功能上的优势。
新闻来源：www.bloomberg.com
原文地址：Why Singapore, Hong Kong Want Digital Money to Serve a Purpose
新闻日期：2024-10-06
原文摘要：
Late last month, Hong Kong began a second round of pilot programs for e-HKD, a much-awaited electronic version of the island’s banknotes. The monetary authority also tweaked the name of the project to , a timely acknowledgement that when it comes to giving the city’s residents a new payment option, a central bank digital currency, or CBDC, isn’t the only worthwhile goal. Bank deposits could be tokenized, too.That’s also the direction that Singapore, which decided in 2021 to , has taken with its . The rival Asian financial centers’ experiments with programmable deposits on the blockchain may help set a global trend. From rewarding environment-friendly spending and channeling government grants to deserving beneficiaries, money will do more than just grease commerce. CBDCs work like paperless ATMs. Once you decide the withdrawal amount, the e-wallet on your smartphone gives you spending power that is no longer the liability of the institution where you keep your savings, but that of the central bank. If CBDCs become wildly popular, banks could lose a big chunk of customers’ funds and may have to curb lending. The solution could be to put caps. Rough by Katrin Assenmacher, the head of stress test modeling at the European Central Bank, and other researchers suggest that a limit close to 3,000 euros per person would be effective in managing excess demand in the euro area. It’s equally possible, however, that this brand-new payment instrument would struggle to find early adopters. While the Chinese government is paying some employees at state-owned enterprises with e-CNY, most are converting it to cash immediately, according to a South China Morning Post in May. Deposit tokens won’t feel very different to users of mobile-payment apps. Nor will they threaten financial stability. When a buyer takes out $10 from her Wells Fargo & Co. deposit and spends the token, the money will reappear as $10 in the seller’s e-wallet. It’s when the seller decides to swipe the balance into a Citigroup Inc. account that Wells Fargo’s liability will end, and Citi’s will begin. Even if all the funds held in savings and current accounts are converted into their cryptographic equivalents, there will be no change in the banking system’s liabilities or assets.Money will move faster over the blockchain, particularly for cross-border transfers that often require a string of correspondent banks. Fees will fall, from nearly at present.A bigger advantage will come from smart contracts, self-executing software code capable of putting all sorts of conditions around when a payment will be triggered and to whom. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Singapore’s largest lender, has used distributed ledger technology in a to streamline government grants to businesses. Once smart contracts verify that the conditions for payments have been met, cash is automatically disbursed.In Hong Kong, DBS is working on a project that will allow companies to with hypothetical e-HKD that can only be spent for buying green products. However, purpose-bound loyalty programs don’t have to wait for central banks to issue CBDCs. They will run just as well with tokenized deposits. Hang Seng Bank Ltd., a subsidiary of HSBC Holdings Plc, will test if digital money can become the building block of a rewards platform that is open, efficient and scalable, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority last month. Bank deposits account for of the world’s money in circulation. Even if a small chunk of them gets tokenized, it will be a big innovation — and not just in Asia. Just last week, BBVA, Spain’s second-largest lender, that it will be one of the first users of Visa Inc.’s new tokenized asset platform. Deposit coins will enjoy the insurance that governments around the world provide to small savers. For an average individual, a $10 token in her wallet will always be exactly that, regardless of the bank that issued it.Deposit tokens already have competition. Stablecoins also promise parity with central bank money. But to make good on that pledge, the likes of Tether Holdings Ltd.’s USDT, the dominant player in the , and its rival, Circle Internet Financial Ltd.’s USD Coin, or USDC, need to support all of their liabilities with liquid collateral, such as cash and government bonds. Tokenized deposits at well-capitalized banks won’t require 1:1 backing, leaving more of the world’s limited supply of safe assets free for productive uses. Tokenized deposits may, therefore, be economically more efficient than stablecoins. Since they , they should also be less risky than cryptocurrencies that lose billions of dollars every year to . If smart contracts can also make the coins socially beneficial, then more central banks might emulate Singapore and skip retail CBDCs. Or, they might put , as Bank of Canada did recently. For now, private money that serves a public purpose should be good enough. More From Bloomberg Opinion: Want more Bloomberg Opinion? . Or you can subscribe to .
