China’s blockchain project BSN to pilot global CBDC system in 2021

The Chinese national blockchain project, the Blockchain Service Network, is planning to pilot integration with global central bank digital currencies.

According to a Jan. 15 blog post, the BSN is looking to build a universal digital payment network, or UDPN, based on CBDCs of various countries as part of its 2021 roadmap. Currently at the design stage, the beta version of UDPN is expected to launch in the second half of 2021. The BSN plans to complete the UDPN development in five years.

With the UDPN, BSN aims to enable a standardized digital currency transfer method and payment procedure. The new system intends to bring together systems like banking, insurance, enterprise resource planning and mobile apps through APIs to provide a cost-friendly global payment solution.

In the blog post, the BSN once again confirmed that China is serious about further CBDC development, pinpointing it as the biggest game-changer in the financial system:

“The CBDCs will completely change the current payment and circulation methods of traditional currencies, consistently build payment systems’ resilience, and significantly increase the global circulation of commodities and cross-currency settlement.”

The UDPN is one of four goals on the BSN’s roadmap for 2021. The other three are the further expansion of the BSN network, promoting the private BSN platform, and broadening the BSN ecosystem. The BSN said that it will keep investing heavily in the research and development of blockchain in 2021 to accelerate the mass adoption of blockchain technology worldwide.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the BSN is the Chinese government-backed blockchain initiative that was first piloted in late 2019. The project was initially positioned as a tech hub to help small to medium-sized businesses build and deploy blockchain apps on permissioned blockchains. The program was officially launched in April 2020 for global commercial use.