Taiwan's Central Bank is pursuing a cautious strategy in the development of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), emphasizing a methodical progression rather than rushing for speed. The Bank's President, Yang Chin-long, stated that while there is no fixed timeline for the issuance of a CBDC, ongoing research and experimentation are enhancing the efficiency of payment processing and exploring innovative applications within the payment system. The Central Bank of Taiwan, as reported by Reuters, is focusing on enhancing domestic payment efficiency and fostering innovation through experiments with CBDC. The bank's focus lies in improving payment system efficiency and exploring novel applications without a specific schedule for launching a digital New Taiwan dollar.

A significant advancement includes the creation of a CBDC prototype platform tailored for retail payments, capable of handling digital coupon transactions at a rapid pace of up to 20,000 transactions per second. Furthermore, the bank is developing a proof-of-concept for a wholesale CBDC that integrates CBDC with bank deposit tokens to facilitate a future digital currency system.

The central bank's roadmap involves implementing tokenization technology to revolutionize wholesale and commercial bank currency, enabling support for asset tokens. Collaborative efforts with banks aim to test inter-bank transfers and asset token deliveries on a unified platform.

President Yang emphasized Taiwan's prudent approach, driven by the goal to meet public digital payment demands and align with government digital policy objectives to ensure significant advantages. Concurrently, Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission is preparing to introduce new regulations on digital assets by September 2024, aimed at enhancing market oversight effectiveness and safeguarding investor interests.

This strategic direction underscores Taiwan's commitment to amalgamating digital financial innovations while emphasizing stability and public welfare in its financial landscape.