ICBC President on Digital Currency: Technology Can Only Reinforce Trust, Not Replace It

On Oct. 21, according to Caixin, ICBC President Liu Jun stated during the First Digital RMB Annual Meeting held alongside the 2026 Financial Street Forum Annual Conference that while digital technology drives the development of the digital economy, it also brings changes to the monetary trust mechanism. Data, algorithms, and programmability begin to participate in the generation and transmission of credit, shifting trust from single-point institutional backing to joint support by both institutions and technology. However, technology can only reinforce trust, not replace it.

Liu Jun noted that whether digital currency can qualify as money hinges not on the algorithm design itself, but on how credit is backed and realized, and how accountability is enforced. He pointed out that money is transitioning from physical assets to data, and from multi-stage clearing dependent on accounts and intermediaries toward synchronous payment and settlement. While the operational form of money is changing, its core attributes remain unchanged, continuing to serve the three fundamental functions of medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account.