Guangdong free trade zone plan targets cross-border digital yuan expansion

The buyer was a subsidiary of a state-owned enterprise that regularly imports iron ore and pays overseas shipping charges. Before the CBETS settlement, the company relied on traditional wire transfers involving intermediary banks, longer processing times, and foreign-exchange costs, the report said. The transaction also linked ICBC's payment and collection services across China, Singapore, and Laos through the platform.

CBETS, built by the International Operation Center for the digital yuan under the People's Bank of China's Digital Currency Research Institute, combines several earlier digital currency systems into a unified settlement network that supports both centralized and blockchain-based processing and uses ISO 20022 messaging standards. The platform signed direct participant agreements with the first group of 26 financial institutions in June, including ICBC Asia, Bank of China Hong Kong, Standard Chartered China, and several overseas ICBC branches in Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Macau, and Qatar.

Guangdong's draft comes after broader policy shifts this year. Starting Jan. 1, banks were permitted to pay interest on verified digital yuan wallets after the PBOC approved the transition of e-CNY from electronic cash into an interest-bearing digital deposit currency. Verified balances now receive the same deposit insurance protection as conventional bank deposits, while non-bank payment companies must hold customer reserves entirely in digital yuan. The central bank also announced plans to enlarge cross-border e-CNY pilot programs involving Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

The Guangdong commerce department said the plan remains a draft and has been published to collect public feedback. Comments can be submitted by email until Sept. 5, after which authorities will review the input before finalizing the document.