Central bank digital currency and financial innovation and Appli

1. Yao Qian, head of the preparatory group of the digital currency Research Institute of the central bank, said that the digital currency issued by the central bank is mainly to replace physical cash, rece the cost of issuance and circulation of traditional paper money, and improve the convenience and transparency of economic transactions
Huang Zhen, director of the Institute of financial law of Central University of Finance and economics, said that digital currency mainly refers to the form of currency and will not cause currency shrinkage. The issuing scale of money is still controlled by the central bank, while the issue of paper money or digital money is just a change of form< In addition, Huang Zhen mentioned that the issue of digital currency is still in the stage of discussion, which is an innovative mechanism of currency value symbol, and many problems are still under study. However, in practice, people are more and more inclined to use e-banking and e-payment rather than carrying notes. Under this trend, the number of banknotes in circulation in the future may decrease
the central bank's issuing of digital currency is still inspired by encrypted digital currencies such as bitcoin and lettercoin, and so is the token of European crowdfunding platform. The digital currency issued by the central bank has monetary attributes, while the token of European crowdfunding platform can only be a kind of asset certificate, a niche proct.

2. On November 13 this year, the official microblog of the people's Bank of China announced that the people's Bank of China has issued legal digital currency, and some institutions falsely use the name of the people's Bank of China to trade relevant digital procts under the title of "DC / EP" or "DCEP" on the digital asset trading platform. The central bank stressed that no legal digital currency (DC / EP) was issued and no asset trading platform was authorized to trade. Neither "DC / EP" nor "DCEP" traded in the market is legal digital currency, and the launch time of legal digital currency transmitted through Internet is inaccurate information<

at present, the so-called issuance of legal digital currency in the Internet, and the behavior of indivial institutions launching "DC / EP" or "DCEP" in the name of the people's Bank of China to conct transactions on the asset trading platform may involve fraud and pyramid selling. The general public should raise their risk awareness, not be partial to trust, and guard against interest damage
as early as September 4, 2017, the central bank and other seven departments jointly issued the announcement on preventing the financing risk of token issuance (hereinafter referred to as the announcement), pointing out that the issuance of virtual currency, ICO and other suspected illegal financial activities seriously disrupted the economic and financial order, and no organization or indivial may engage in the above activities illegally.

3. The central bank's digital currency is the legal digital currency approved by the State Council. The central bank organizes market institutions to engage in the corresponding work of the central bank's digital currency research and development

2019 August 21st, the official account of WeChat central bank released two articles on digital currency.

4. On the issue of issuing their own digital currency, central banks are always less thunderous. Central banks around the world are considering issuing their own digital currencies to compete with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, but they have been unable to do so for a long time

the media's attention to the central bank's digital currency has increased significantly, especially after Zuckerberg testified in Congress on the Libra issue and Christina Lagarde acknowledged the "clear demand" for stable currency at her first media reception as president of the European Central Bank, which seems to have changed the public's view on this matter, Let many people in cryptocurrency community think that cbdcs is in sight<

according to the latest survey report released by the bank for International Settlements, central banks in the past seven years have been investigating this technology and assessing its impact. Of the 63 central banks surveyed, 55 said they were unlikely to issue cbdcs in the next three years, and only one reported that they were "highly likely to issue large-scale cbdcs in the next three to six years."

although the proportion of central banks studying cbdcs is very high, the crux of the problem is that it is mainly theoretical and investigative work. Only five central banks have concted more in-depth research and real project development or experimentation - but that still does not mean that they will necessarily issue cbdcs

through close observation, it is more and more obvious that both Libra recently released by Facebook and the new stable currency assets have had a significant impact on the central bank. Today's situation took hundreds of years to form, but it changed in a few months; Competition, the most terrifying and unfamiliar concept that has never been thought of before and penetrated into the elite society of central banks, is now knocking at the door

it can be said that the solution to the current situation is still unclear. Some people who are familiar with these things even say that they are bluffing. However, in Lagarde's own words, the slow and wait-and-see regulatory approach can no longer meet the needs

1. What is central bank digital currency<

what is the difference between central bank digital currency CBDC and other digital currencies

CBDC is a new form of currency, which is directly issued by the central bank in digital form as legal tender. The current form of legal currency is cash, reserve deposit or balance settlement< There are two main differences between CBDC and other digital currencies (including cryptocurrency and other forms of central bank currency):

1. CBDC has nothing to do with cryptoassets. They're not decentralized, they don't have to be blockchain based, and they're certainly not anonymous, they're not unlicensed, they're not censored< 2. Contrary to the current digital cash, the operation structure of CBDC will be different from other forms of central bank currency. CBDC has more powerful functions. They are programmable, can generate interest, can be cleared in near real time, and have cheaper handling charges and wider openness

when designing CBDC, the speed of central banks is different. Different central banks adopt their own approach. However, in general, there are three problems being explored: whether CBDC should be based on token or account number, whether CBDC should be batch (only open to banks) or retail (open to the public), and whether it should be based on DLT

when CBDC is to be implemented, things will become complicated, and there are many thorny problems to be considered

for example, once CBDC is launched, does it need to cancel cash? Should CBDC carry interest? Should they have face value like cash? Or linked to the total price index? What impact will this have on commercial banks? What about anonymity and privacy? All these questions need to be answered<

2. Motivation for issuing CBDC

in the 2017 staff discussion paper, the Bank of Canada gave six reasons for issuing CBDC in an article entitled "central bank digital currency: motivation and impact":

1. Ensure that the central bank provides sufficient cash to the public, and maintain the seigniorage revenue of the central bank

2, Support non-traditional monetary policy

3. Rece overall risk and improve financial stability

4. Improve payment competitiveness

5. Promote financial inclusiveness

6. Curb criminal activities

looking back at the bank for International Settlements survey we analyzed earlier, payment security and domestic efficiency are selected as the most important motives of the central bank. According to a large number of papers published by the central bank and other large financial institutions, for developed countries, the transformation into a cashless society is the main driving factor, while for developing countries, financial inclusiveness, cost rection and operational efficiency are the main motivation

throughout the rest of the reports and the literature that can be found, the fierce competition brought about by bitcoin and other innovations in the cryptocurrency instry, as well as the clear need for "one step ahead", of course, are not listed as the reasons for issuing CBDC< The advantages and potential risks of CBDC are very low.

if the central bank starts to launch CBDC and succeeds in the end, there are many potential benefits

from a technical point of view, CBDC is much better than the current form of legal currency. They can be tracked better, collect taxes more conveniently, transmit monetary policy better, have better financial inclusiveness, and rece the cost of procing physical currency

the most obvious advantage is that payment is cheaper and faster, whether it is domestic payment or cross-border payment

in addition to the design and implementation problems, a key problem of issuing CBDC is that CBDC may increase the risk of bank operation. However, this only happens when banks promise that their deposits can be converted into CBDC on demand, which is not necessarily the case, according to the Bank of England document

4. Facts on the ground

how far is it from us to see a real CBDC appear in the market? It's hard to estimate, but at present, we can sum up the current situation in one sentence: all talk but no practice

if we put aside the failed digital currencies of Ecuador, Tunisia and Venezuela, we can only do theoretical research, a small amount of experiments, and issue some feasible CBDC issuance announcements supported by the state in the future

the most famous CBDC projects in progress are: e-peso in Uruguay (the project was successfully tested in 2018), DCEP in China, "project Inthanon" in Thailand, e-krona in Sweden (still in the research stage)...

5. The revolution has not yet been successful, and comrades still need to work hard

considering the factors mentioned above, Most of the headlines about CBDC's upcoming release are groundless. All projects scheled to be released this year have been delayed

in fact, there is still a long way to go for the birth of CBDC, and to convince the public, we need more than a statement. Given the current situation, it seems that CBDC and other cryptocurrencies may not affect each other - at least for now.

5. Digital currency generally refers to bitcoin, lightcoin, Puyin, dogcoin, Ethereum and other digital cryptocurrencies. According to media reports, before the Spring Festival, the blockchain based digital bill trading platform promoted by the people's Bank of China has been successfully tested. After the Spring Festival, the digital currency Research Institute of the central bank will also be officially listed. This means that the people's Bank of China will become the first central bank to study digital currency and its real application.

6. 1 the framework of legal digital currency needs the participation of non bank payment institutions
there is no unified concept of legal digital currency. The Bank of England defines "digital currency" as "a payment method existing only by electronic means... Which can be used to purchase physical goods and services"... Including "private digital currency" and "digital currency issued by the central bank". Further than the Bank of England, Yao Qian, director of the digital currency Research Institute of the people's Bank of China, made clear the multiple connotations of the central bank's legal digital currency in several public speeches: legal and encrypted credit currency, adopted a series of algorithms, and derived more intelligent functions in the payment function
to this end, the central bank has designed a system architecture of "one currency, two warehouses and three centers", that is, taking digital currency as the center, designing the issuing library and deposit library, matching the certification center, big data analysis center and registration center. The central bank's digital currency is issued by the central bank and circulated in the commercial bank's account. The issuing inventory is put into the people's Bank of China to deposit the digital currency. The deposit bank is the database of the commercial bank to deposit the central bank's digital currency. The authentication center manages the identity of institutions and users in a centralized way; The registration center completes the whole life cycle and ownership registration of the central bank's digital currency; The big data analysis center achieves the goals of anti money laundering, anti terrorist financing, index detection and analysis
as an important node in the framework of legal digital currency, commercial banks play an important role in the circulation of central bank's digital currency. In the case that China's non bank payment institutions have occupied a certain market share, it is a better choice for non bank payment institutions to participate in the framework of digital currency operation as a supplement to commercial banks. The reasons are as follows: first, third-party payment institutions can help commercial banks realize the promotion of legal digital currency. Within commercial banks, there is a competitive relationship between legal digital currency and physical currency. The public tends to convert the digital currency in cash account into traditional currency in exchange for income, so it is difficult to achieve the goal of promoting digital currency by commercial banks; Second, the third-party payment institutions can avoid the repeated construction of payment application scenarios by commercial banks. Different from non bank payment institutions, the current payment scenarios of commercial banks are relatively lack of diversification, which will lead to a waste of resources and the rich experience accumulated by non bank payment institutions; Third, the third-party payment institutions can appropriately rece the operating costs of commercial banks. On the one hand, commercial banks need to upgrade the necessary software and hardware for the central bank's digital money service; On the other hand, we should continue to do a good job in traditional RMB deposit and withdrawal services. The simultaneous operation of the two systems will increase a lot of human and material costs. Fourth, the third-party payment institutions can promote the construction of payment instruments and channel integration of commercial banks. In the framework of legal digital currency, the single payment instruments and complex payment channels provided by commercial banks may rece the enthusiasm of the public to use legal digital currency
2 the emergence of legal digital currency reshapes the role of non bank payment institutions
in the process of cooperation with commercial banks, all kinds of non bank payment institutions play four roles. The first is the role of account manager. Non bank payment institutions can not operate deposit and loan business, and the amount in their payment account is not a deposit, so it is easier for the public to accept the role of non bank payment institutions as "digital wallet". At the same time, non bank payment institutions have rich experience in the development and operation of digital currency wallets and their terminals, which is concive to the smooth management and use of central bank's digital currency, and there is no need to worry about the risk of misappropriation of funds by non bank payment institutions. The second is the role of payment service provider. Non bank payment institutions have a lot of experience in scenario development and operation, including mobile payment, cross-border payment and rural payment, and relatively large market share of scenario based payment. On the one hand, powerful non bank payment institutions can develop a variety of procts based on Intelligent legal digital currency to meet the needs of users' exchange, payment, storage and related derivatives; On the other hand, non bank payment institutions can make use of various scenarios to promote the use of legal digital currency. For example, when consumers want to invest through the central bank's digital currency, non bank payment institutions, with the experience of traditional currency investment and payment services and upgraded digital wallet, can be fully competent as the special payment service provider of digital currency investment. Third, the role of system construction service provider. NPC, the core of national payment and settlement system, and CCPC, the core of provincial payment and settlement system, will continue to play an important role in the framework of legal digital currency. In the long-term coexistence of legal digital currency and traditional currency, NPC and CCPC will be double important nodes. Non bank payment institutions with strong technical ability can be used as secondary verification nodes under the framework of legal digital currency to supplement the multi center and distributed system architecture and continue to dock with NPC and CCPC
3 technical connection between non bank payment institutions and legal digital currency system
the innovation of non bank payment institutions is accompanied by the connection with legal digital currency system, covering the whole process of digital currency generation, storage, use and withdrawal. In this process, the first thing to solve is the docking of basic layer technology and transaction mole. The docking of basic layer technology is reflected in three aspects. First, in terms of basic security technology, non bank payment institutions, as providers of mobile terminal transaction forms, need to apply terminal security mole technology, dock with unified encryption and decryption system, provide carriers for secure storage and encryption and decryption operations, and provide effective basic security protection for digital currency. Secondly, in the aspect of data security technology, non bank payment institutions, as a part of the whole payment system, should adopt the official unified ciphertext + MAC / ciphertext + hash technology to transmit digital currency information, so as to ensure the confidentiality, security and non tamperability of the information. Thirdly, in the aspect of transaction security technology, non bank payment institutions, as the advanced nodes participating in bookkeeping, adopt blind signature technology to ensure the controllable anonymity of digital currency in the process of transaction, and eliminate the possibility of repeated payment through serial number, time stamp and other ways; And through encryption and decryption, digital signature, identity authentication and other anti-counterfeiting ways to ensure the authenticity of the transaction
when docking with the transaction mole, non bank payment institutions should do the following: first, docking with the certification center to obtain relevant digital certificates and user identity information; Second, connect with the trusted service management mole to obtain the use function of digital currency; Third, connect with the issuing system and storage system, and apply for and exchange digital currency through the bank treasury; Fourth, connect with the transaction communication mole to ensure that users can realize online payment through the transaction network in the intelligent terminal based on online transaction communication; Fifth, connect with the registration center, notify and record the flow of digital currency transactions, so as to complete the registration of the central bank's digital currency generation, circulation, checking and extinction process
4 scenario docking between non bank payment institutions and legal digital currency system
scenario docking of non bank payment institutions is based on the transformation of their own roles. Legal digital currency is algorithmic currency and intelligent currency, so business innovation and scenario expansion are the proper meaning of legal digital currency system. Non bank payment institutions can achieve scene docking mainly in four aspects
first, enabling the financial instry and defusing the limitations of financial scenario services. At present, there are some limitations in financial scenario service, such as business modeling is not universal, different agents have different management requirements, and the system docking cost of participants is high. Non bank payment institutions connect with the underlying technology of legal digital currency, and through the research and development of smart contract, establish behavior information such as capital flow, trigger conditions, value change rules, revenue right registration, and corresponding capital information (amount, account, currency, etc.) to resolve the existing limitations of financial scenario service. Non bank payment institutions use the atomic properties of digital currency and the atomic transactions of smart contracts to "assemble" into a business model. It does not need to develop a separate platform for different business scenarios, and avoids the monopoly of the instry platform and the non disclosure of information
Second, expand the use scenarios and improve the user experience. Non bank payment institutions can continue to expand the use scenarios according to the characteristics of legal digital currency on the basis of the existing rich payment scenarios, so as to meet the needs of users' exchange, payment, storage and related derivatives. At the same time, through the aggregation application, users can use the app of non bank payment institutions to dock a large number of scenarios and services
thirdly, improve the security of funds and create a universal digital wallet. Non bank payment institutions can provide digital wallet services, create digital wallets that meet security standards through their own technology, and ensure the security of users' funds. Alternative methods include: the central bank and non bank payment institutions cooperate to develop a unified universal digital wallet application, or authorize several qualified non bank payment institutions to provide universal digital wallet services. The digital wallet can realize the mutual exchange between the user's funds in various commercial banks and the legal digital currency even in the self owned accounts of non bank payment institutions. From the perspective of implementation, at the same time, the traditional account system of commercial banks can also bind the digital currency wallet of non bank payment institutions, so as to achieve the joint management of traditional accounts bound with digital currency wallet
Fourth, help cross-border settlement and build a safe and reliable cross time zone alliance chain. Non bank payment institutions can deeply participate in the cross-border payment system of legal digital currency. Cooperation with commercial banks and central banks can be achieved in at least two aspects. First, payment standards and tools are available. Non bank payment institutions participate in the research and establishment of standards and tools to realize the possibility of technical docking. Second, cross border payment system. The business system led by the central bank and participated by commercial banks and qualified non bank payment institutions will help to realize efficient cross-border payment
5 the legal framework of non bank payment institutions and legal digital currency is connected
a perfect legal system is an important guarantee for the operation of the digital currency system. There are several key questions to answer. First, how to determine the ownership of legal digital currency? This is the basis of all legal acts of legal digital currency. The first way of thinking is that legal digital currency is intangible. As a special movable property, it is applicable to the provisions of the property law. For example, Liu Xiangmin, director of the Department of articles and law of the people's Bank of China, believes that "to solve the problem of ownership transfer of digital currency, we should also focus on the publicity of ownership." The second idea is that digital currency is an electromagnetic record, which is applicable to the law of data transfer and transaction. The essence of digital currency is electromagnetic recording, and the transfer of electromagnetic recording content is recorded in the node of digital currency technology architecture. The change of node records is taken as the standard of ownership transfer. Second, how to protect personal information security? Personal information security is a basic problem in the era of digital economy. In addition to legislation to improve the level of technical security, we should also make clear the main types of legal digital currency system

7.

There is no consistent definition of direct banking in China. In general, direct banking is a way that banks break the traditional counter business and can directly handle business on the Internet in order to attract more users and facilitate the use of customers. Users can handle business through web pages, mobile terminals, etc, Save a lot of waiting time for both sides. The business philosophy of this mode is to develop towards faster and more convenient business processing, which greatly reces the time and energy spent by users in banking business processing. Compared with the traditional banks in the past, direct banks mainly have the advantages of strong network dependence, accurate business procts, low cost, convenient and fast, but the relative strong network dependence is also a major factor hindering the development of direct banks. These characteristics make the transaction process of direct bank very simple, operation time is short, the staff is reced a lot, the use of fixed equipment and original procts is reced a lot, and the cost is greatly reced, which is an innovation for the bank to survive in the increasingly fierce competition

There are four trends in the development of direct banking

Technology enables the development of direct banking. The application of cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other new generation information technology will fundamentally change the operation mode of direct banking, improve service efficiency and level, and rece service cost. The specific ways are mainly reflected in the following aspects. One is to further improve user experience and service efficiency by introcing new technologies such as machine learning, virtual reality and biometrics; Second, through cloud computing, distributed architecture and other solutions, reconstruct the infrastructure deployment mode, rece operating costs, and build the ability to serve a large number of customers; The third is to use big data to improve the level of risk control, anti fraud, proct pricing, precision marketing, intelligent investment consulting, etc. In addition, blockchain and other technologies can provide strong support for the new financial transaction mode

In the process of using financial technology, on the one hand, direct banks should grasp the development trend of financial technology, and lay out the field of financial technology by strengthening talent reserve and technology accumulation, and communicating and cooperating with third parties. In the process of continuously enhancing the ability of self-control of core technologies and optimizing and improving the efficiency of the overall science and technology system, we should carry out learning and Research on emerging frontier technologies, apply innovation, cultivate data thinking, establish cooperation mechanisms between internal and external parties, and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with frontier high-tech enterprises in big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, blockchain, etc, Innovative laboratories such as intelligent risk control and precision marketing can be set up in the form of joint construction, and innovative projects can be researched and implemented to build an intelligent financial technology system with strong cloud computing and big data processing capabilities. On the other hand, it is necessary to build a standardized open business platform, formulate standardized cooperation docking process, build a standardized merchant cooperation platform system integrating docking, joint debugging, testing, online and operation management, quickly and efficiently promote technology docking and financial services standardized output, and use scientific and technological means to improve business capacity

2. The development strategy of platform will become the priority of direct banks in the future. In recent years, platform economy is rising rapidly. Among the top 10 companies with global market value in 2017, platform enterprises occupy as many as six seats, namely apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba and Tencent. Platform economy has become a worldwide trend business model and a new economic development paradigm, which has promoted the major changes in proction and lifestyle, and has increasingly become an important part of social economy

for commercial banks, the rapid development of platform economy has brought both opportunities and challenges. Platform enterprises gather a large number of merchants and customers. Merchants and customers have financial service needs. The platform has financial cross-border cooperation, data commercialization, business compliance and other needs, which puts forward new requirements for the traditional customer acquisition and service mode of commercial banks. The platform has rich resources such as business flow, logistics and capital flow, and is an important customer group of commercial banks

direct banking service platform will become the future trend. Through the construction of financial service intermediary platform, the direct bank realizes the integration of basic procts and services of the bank, interbank, non interbank and other institutions in the proct end, and creates the financial cloud of wealth management, network financing, payment and settlement, big data services. In terms of customer service, it will realize the integration of platform enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises on the platform, small and medium-sized enterprises on the platform Comprehensive and comprehensive services for consumers on the platform

in the face of different platforms in the fields of consumption, instry and government affairs, the strategies of financial intermediary service platform constructed by banks are also different, which can be built according to three modes

(1) for those related fields that have not yet formed a platform for aggregation and specialization, direct banks can integrate internal and external resources, open up key nodes through self construction, M & A, investment and other forms, and build an in-house financial intermediary service platform to cover the whole scene of subdivided instries. Taking the acquisition of auto home by Ping An Trust in 2016 as an example, auto home, as a domestic auto vertical professional media, will not only obtain strong support from Ping An Group in terms of capital, but also become an important part of building an all-round auto service ecosystem for Ping An group. To build a platform model, it is generally necessary to rely on the resources of the group or parent bank to form a synergy of public and retail business; In addition, banks need to define their own service boundary, avoid large and comprehensive platform, resulting in excessive resource investment, and it is difficult to meet the personalized needs

(2) if a specialized platform has been formed in relevant fields, or the platform has not extended to the financial field e to regulatory requirements, direct banks can export financial procts and services through docking with such platforms

(3) the relevant fields have formed monopolistic resource integrators, and the services have been extended to the financial field, so it is difficult for banks to build their own platform to let the participants settle in. The relatively feasible solution for direct banks is to provide funds and financial services to the platform

3. Service scenario. In the future, direct banking procts will be a standardized proct that can be easily embedded into various financial scenarios. According to the view of a bank's senior financial practitioners, it is financial media. In the future, Internet banking and direct banking will become media tools for a bank to carry out mobile financial transformation. In the Internet dimension space, Internet banking and direct banking will become media tools, As a medium like air, it permeates into various scenes of financial services

4. Independent organizational structure. Most foreign direct banks adopt the independent legal person business model, and China's direct banks will graally develop in the direction of independence. With the official opening of Baixin bank, the first independent legal person direct bank in China, several independent legal person direct banks may be approved. The independent organizational structure of direct bank will have a positive impact on proct innovation, risk isolation from parent bank, mobilization of team enthusiasm, cost accounting, customer management, science and technology development mechanism, etc

In the process of independent corporatization of direct banking, the introction of external strategic investors will become one of the options. Through the introction of strategic investors, the capital strength can be improved. At the same time, through the docking with shareholders' resources, technology, scene, etc., the construction and development ability of direct banking ecology can be rapidly improved, and the coordination and win-win between direct banking and shareholders can be realized