Macau Monetary Authority: The "Digital Macau Pataca" plans to have a soft and hard wallet, and the research and development project will be carried out in three phases

Chen Shouxin, Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Macao, revealed that the initial idea is to launch soft and hard wallets of the "digital pataca". Among them, the "hard wallet" can be in the form of a "card" and even combined with smart devices to facilitate the use of the elderly and children; the "soft wallet" is launched as a mobile application. Chen Shouxin said that the "digital pataca" is equivalent to the legal status of cash, and the "digital pataca" can be used for payment in cash scenarios, while the "digital pataca" at the wholesale level is mainly used by regulated financial institutions, involving application scenarios of transfer and financial transaction settlement. In addition, the "digital pataca" R&D project is carried out in three phases: the "digital pataca" prototype system constructed in the first phase will publicly demonstrate its functions and applications in December this year; the second phase is an internal closed trial operation, and internal closed verification is carried out based on the whitelist method; the third phase is a comprehensive public test to allow the "digital pataca" to be integrated into the public's payment application scenarios in an orderly manner, and to carry out the "central bank digital currency" project at the wholesale level, that is, inter-bank settlement, and to explore the extension of the use of the "digital pataca" to cross-border payments in the future. (tdm)