The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub announced on Tuesday that its Hong Kong Center will explore this year whether decentralized finance (DeFi) can improve financing for small and medium enterprises.
Fast facts
- In Hong Kong, the BIS has been working with central banks of China, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates and Thailand on a multiple central bank digital currency (mCBDC) bridge project to develop a settlement platform for cross-border payments.
- The BIS is an international financial institution that serves as a bank for central banks with innovation hubs in Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, London and Stockholm.
- In Singapore, the BIS will continue its multi-CBDC shared settlement platforms through Project Dunbar and Project Nexus.
- The bank’s London center is launching its first project to study the benefits of CBDCs while the Switzerland center is also exploring CBDCs and DeFi.
- In a quarterly review published last December, the BIS questioned the real-economy uses of DeFi by suggesting that its “decentralization is an illusion.”
