China Could Issue Digital Currency In Early 2020: Analyst

China’s digital currency could go live in two to three months, Jack Lee, Managing Partner of HCM Capital, the private equity arm of Foxconn Technology Co Ltd, told CNBC in an interview on Monday.

“So, they already have all the system and the network ready. I think you will see it very soon, in the next maybe two to three months,” Lee told CNBC, referring to China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) project.

Former Governor of the People's Bank of China Zhou Xiaochuan announced the DCEP project in an interview with Bloomberg in March 2018. 

The bank has been working on the blockchain-enabled DCEP for more than five years to help it get “a degree of control over their economy that most central banks do not have,” according to Reuters. Mu Changchun, the head of the bank’s digital currency research institute, said in August that the digital currency was “almost ready." 

The bank’s governor Yi Gang said in September the bank had set no timeline for issuing the currency, as requirements such as anti-money laundering compliance still needed to be met.

Lee also mentioned the central bank has no immediate intentions to replace the fiat currency completely.