The People's Bank of China (PBoC) is releasing new details about a forthcoming five-year development plan focused on its strategy for advancing technology use in the country's domestic financial industry.

According to the announcement by the central bank, the PBoC intends to actively push forward the development of new technologies such as blockchain and AI. It also plans to strengthen its research on applications of fintech in regulation, cloud computing and big data.

The press release emphasizes that from 2016 to 2020 the PBoC will be taking steps to help China's financial industry embrace economic reform.

Overall, the plan intends to put forward five goals for the financial technology industry: establishing a world-leading infrastructure, facilitating innovations in financial sector, implementing the financial industry standardization strategy and improving the competency and management of the financial network security system.

Looking more broadly, the release, while not yet fully public, is the latest sign the PBoC is actively looking into the potential of blockchain technology.

Last January, it is reported that the PBoC had tested a blockchain-based digital currency, and it has since begun pushing for blockchain securities rules and publishing research papers on its efforts.

PBoC image via Shutterstock