The Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) — the world's third-largest bank by assets — is set to implement Beijing’s firm anti-cryptocurrency measures and rigorously vet its clients to ensure they are not engaged in any form of illegal activities involving crypto transacting, trading or mining. AgBank’s statement today followed the institution’s meeting with the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), which convened major domestic banks and mobile payment service providers and ordered them to ensure that banking and settlement services are denied to clients engaged in crypto-related transactions. An official PBoC statement today reiterated that all banks and payment institutions “must …

China’s digital yuan will utilize smart contracts, and will be built to counter Alipay-like payment platforms designed by the privately-owned conglomerates, former People’s Bank of China director Yao Qian said. Speaking at the International Finance Forum in Beijing, Qian argued that simply simulating its physical counterpart would not be enough for the digital yuan to succeed. To fully benefit from being digital, it will move toward the "smart currency" by making use of smart contracts, he added, according to local sources. Central banks need to innovate the legal fiat money to keep up with the tides of digitalization, he said. …

China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, will provide backup for major retail payment services like AliPay and WeChat Pay as its key objective, according to an official at the People’s Bank of China. Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, claimed that China’s digital yuan is needed to ensure financial stability in case “something happens” to AliPay or WeChat Pay, the South China Morning Post reports. Speaking at an online panel discussion on Thursday, Mu stated that Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China, …

For the past several years, the trade war between China and the U.S. has been at the center of international relations, with technology playing an outsized role. Within crypto, advancing interest in central bank digital currencies has become part of that narrative of geopolitical competition. Many have framed the development of CBDCs in China and the U.S. as a race — in which case, China is clearly closer to launch and, hence, the “winner.” But a race to the finish is a flawed paradigm, and one to which Cointelegraph has contributed its fair share. For the moment, China is actively …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor's note As they say, the sun never sets on the Google empire. That said, the role of antitrust law in tech has been on the rise in recent years. Every indication is that the situation is only going to get worse for mega tech firms. So Jeff Bezos’ departure from the top spot at Amazon may well have been a beautifully timed case of quitting while you’re ahead. As I’ve mentioned before — “harped on about” might actually be more …

Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese e-commerce group Alibaba, has made his first public appearance since October, bringing almost three months of intense speculation about his possible whereabouts to a close. In a new video clip published online on Jan. 20, Ma was reportedly shown visiting a school rebuilt by his foundation — a glimpse that was enough to spur Alibaba's Hong Kong-traded shares to rise by almost 9%. Investors' momentary reassurance follows months of inscrutable actions from the Chinese state to reassert control over one of the country's wealthiest figures, whose conglomerate provides over 70% of China's citizens with …

Chinese fintech Ant Group — which is now poised to launch what could be the world’s largest initial public offering — has announced a new platform via its blockchain business. Ant Group spun out from e-commerce giant Alibaba and is the parent company of China’s largest digital payments service Alipay. Ant Group’s blockchain business, AntChain, has today rolled out a new digital copyright services platform. It combines blockchain technology with AI to enable creators to securely authenticate and verify all kinds of original content — whether video, image-based or written material. The platform generates a unique, tamper-proof digital copyright certification …

Ant Group, the parent company of Chinese payments giant Alipay, unveiled its new Antchain-based global trade platform for small to medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs on Sep. 25. Going by the moniker of Trusple, the platform is based around a concept of “Trust Made Simple”, and aims to streamline the process of cross-border trading. According to Guofei Jiang, President of Ant Group’s Advanced Technology Business Group: “Trusple was designed to solve problems for SMEs and financial institutions involved in cross-border trading.” The claimed problems include a lack of trust leading to delays in shipment and payment, along with the additional banking …

Ant Group, the financial affiliate of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, has filed an Initial Public Offering, or IPO, in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Created by Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, Ant Group is targeting a valuation of about $226 billion, based on a target IPO raise of nearly $30 billion, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Aug. 25. As reported, the new IPO could become the largest deal in history, potentially overtaking the record set by Saudi Arabian multinational oil and gas giant, Saudi Aramco — which raised around $29.4B earlier this year. According to Bloomberg data, the target …

The People’s Bank of China is purportedly planning to use its digital currency electronic system (DCEP) — another moniker for its central bank digital currency — to target the dominance of technology giants like Alibaba and Tencent in the digital payments sector. The report comes only a few days after claims of the central bank prompting a top antitrust agency to launch a probe against Alipay and WeChat Pay for using their dominance to suppress competition. According to the Financial Times, even regulators and executives of Alibaba’s financial group Ant agreed that PBoC will target the market dominance of Alipay …

ByteDance, the Beijing-based multinational tech group behind TikTok, is looking into adding banking to its line of products and services. It is currently bidding for a digital bank license in Singapore, according to the Financial Times on Monday. Competition is stiff ByteDance is likely to compete with a few other Asian tech giants including Alibaba’s Ant Financial and electronic leader Xiaomi to obtain one of the five virtual banking licenses that the Monetary Authority of Singapore is about to issue later this year. The news reported, while citing sources familiar with the matter, that the company has applied for one …

On May 26, Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli, a representative from the International Monetary Fund, stated that moving forward, the best way to harness the potential of central bank digital currencies would be by fostering synthetic partnerships between the private and public sectors. Further expounding his views on the matter, the deputy division chief of the IMF’s monetary capital and markets department stated that the vision behind CBDCs being completely under the control of a central bank is now an outdated one and that the entry of private players could help spur innovation. When asked about how such a partnership could even start …