The Macao government is looking to publicly showcase the city’s first prototype of a digital pataca by the end of this year. That’s according to a statement issued yesterday by the Monetary Authority of Macao (known by its Portuguese initials AMCM).
The authority said the initiative was prompted by the development of the digital economy and was being supported by the central government via technology from the mainland’s own digital yuan.
During the opening of a conference of financial officials from mainland China and the lusophone countries yesterday, outgoing Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng said feasibility studies were being conducted in collaboration with the People’s Bank of China’s Digital Currency Research Institute.
“According to estimates, the prototype of the digital pataca will be premiered in a public demonstration at the end of this year on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Macao’s return to the motherland,” Ho said in a local report.
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Unlike cryptocurrency, digital patacas or e-patacas will be legal tender. In order to verify the safety and stability of the project, the AMCM said it intends to conduct tests on the system under a sandbox environment to assess the various types of risks.
While the specifics of the e-pataca system are unknown at this point, the digital yuan app could give some indication. Much like digital wallets such as Alipay and MPay, digital yuan software enables users to make payments by QR codes. However, it also offers other features, including higher wallet limits based on the amount of data shared by the user.
The introduction of a digital pataca system fits in with the trend towards e-payment that has emerged in Macao in recent years.
ACMC data indicates that the value of mobile transactions through apps such as MPay hit 7.2 billion patacas in the second quarter of 2024, a year-on-year increase of almost 5.3 percent. Meanwhile, the number of transactions grew by almost 16 percent, reaching 85.6 million.
