Norman Chan rolls out digital wallet

Former Hong Kong Monetary Authority chief executive Norman Chan Tak-lam has founded RD Wallet Technologies, an e-wallet company that helps trading companies manage forex risks and facilitate cross-border payment.

Chan will also take up the position of board chairman.

The company will roll out a composite currency unit, called the "round dollar," which is a combination of different currencies.

"Chan talked about the establishment of regional digital currency in April. When he and some business experts discussed the idea in the past few months, then came the idea of setting up a wallet company," a spokesperson of RD Wallet Technologies told The Standard.

In an interview with local media in April, Chan proposed a new regional digital currency based on the Hong Kong dollar, the yuan, Japan's yen and South Korea's won. He also proposed an e-wallet platform for corporate customers, making use of latest blockchain and cloud technologies.

Chan said in the interview that pain points that producers, buyers and trading firms must deal with in cross-border trades include exchange rate risks, long lag times in making or receiving payments, a lack of transparency on where money goes in the meantime and high costs.

RD Wallet Technologies has seven directors, according to the Companies Registry. They include mainland online insurer ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance (6060)'s chairman Ou Yaping and Wayne Xu Wei, president of ZA International. ZA International is the parent company of Hong Kong's first virtual bank ZA Bank.

Another director, Xiao Feng, was the founder of Bosera Asset Management, one of the first and largest mutual funds in China.

Separately, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority has sold more of its local currency so far this year than it did in any full year since the global financial crisis, in a bid to stop the unit strengthening and breaking its peg with the greenback, Reuters reports.