China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) is planning to expand the scope of its Blockchain -based cross-border financing platform, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Revealed at a forum in Beijing by Lu Lei, deputy head of the forex regulator, the agency is planning to strengthen the integration of fintech and foreign exchange markets. It is also focusing on getting a grip on the supervising technology behind the services.
“We will gradually expand the scope of the pilot and the application scenarios of blockchain technology in cross-border financing and macro prudential management,” Lu said.
“At the same time, (the government) will push forward a prospective study on foreign exchange reforms to deal with cryptocurrency and explore the construction of the foreign exchange regulation and technology system under the new situation.”
SAFE launched the cross-border financing platform last March and has expanded its services to 19 provinces and cities in the country from the initial number of 9. The platform is still in the pilot phase.
According to Lu, SAFE’s platform is the only one registered by a central state agency at the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), meaning the government agency has no competition whatsoever for the services in the country.
Betting big on blockchain
Multiple Chinese agencies are jumping into the blockchain industry, including many major private players. Earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping boosted blockchain technology, which also encouraged the players to revamp their efforts.
Meanwhile, the central bank of the country is also developing a digital currency, which will be a digital form of the fiat yuan. The bank officials confirmed that the structure of the digital currency would be different from Bitcoin or other stablecoins, and it will be much more centralized.
Earlier today, Finance Magnates reported that the Chinese technology giant Tencent is planning to create a research group for digital currency, thus streamlining its decentralized Payments services.
