China's central bank issues rules for blockchain-based financial applications

The People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, has issued evaluation rules for blockchain-based financial applications.

Caixin reported the news on Wednesday, saying that the rules require financial institutions building blockchain applications to comply with three standards — technical, performance, and security.

These standards would collectively evaluate applications on parameters such as smart contracts, throughput, software, hardware, and privacy protection, among others. This initiative is to help financial institutions build top-level design of their applications, per the report.

The rules apply to banks, brokers, asset management companies, and payment firms, among other financial services domains. There are currently more than 70 Chinese financial services firms, including state-owned banks and tech giants, who are deploying blockchain-based financial applications. The rules will likely apply to all of them.

The Chinese government initially formed a national standards committee for blockchain in November, and later recruited 71 members for the committee, including executives from tech giants Baidu and Tencent. The government aims to promote "high-tech innovation" and lead the "high-quality development" of blockchain applications.

Last week, Beijing’s municipal government also released a 145-page blueprint outlining a plan to become a hub for blockchain innovation over the next two years.