The Shenzhen municipal government has just issued China’s first local standards for financial blockchain platforms.
The Shenzhen Municipal Government Financial Services Office (深圳市金融办发布) said that the “Financial Sector Blockchain Platform Technical Standards (Draft for Solicitation of Opinions)” (金融行业区块链平台技术规范（征求意见稿）) would serve to expedite the growth of the city’s financial sector.
Chinese law currently outlines five categories of standards, including national standards, industry standards, group standard, local standards and enterprise standards. According to domestic reports the new financial blockchain platform standards from Shenzhen mark the launch of the first local standards of their type in China.
The Shenzhen government gave its official approval to the drafting of the standards in May 2018, as well as their inclusion in the 2018 Shenzhen municipal technical standards document projects plan.
Members of the drafting team for the standards included the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, WeBank (China) and Shenzhen Securities Communication Co., Ltd.
The standards expect China’s financial sector to make increasing use of distributed ledgers to support identity verification, authorisation management, privacy protections and anti-money-laundering and anti-fraud measures.
Because of huge variation in the level, progress and paths of blockchain technology development by members of the financial sector, the standardisation will help regulators to guide financial institutions in the application of blockchain technology.
The standards cover functional components, hierarchical frameworks and technical standards, as well as the systematic methods employed by the standards and will be applicable to enterprises in Shenzhen municipality establishing financial blockchain and distributed ledger systems or providing financial blockchain and distributed ledger services.
The standards will not be applicable, however, to the direct establishment of specific solution plans for financial blockchain services, or technical realisation or deployments.
