While China has yet to announce a formal timetable for the nationwide launch of e-CNY, officially known as Digital Currency and Electronic Payment, authorities aim to showcase its use during the Winter Olympics, when officials said foreign visitors would be able to use the digital yuan in event venues - even without a Chinese bank account. "The digital renminbi has found a better way to integrate with common consumer scenarios, which will make it more inclusive and accessible." Meituan's latest move will allow people to use the digital yuan in various aspects of their daily lives, said Wang Pengbo, senior financial analyst at consultancy BoTong Analysys.
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The surge came before the central bank launched its official e-CNY wallet app for public download in January. Story continues China's digital yuan wallet nearly doubles user base in two monthsĪmid the strong push, the number of e-CNY users nearly doubled to 261 million last December from 140 million just two months earlier, said Zou Lan, head of financial markets at the People's Bank of China. Two months later, Suzhou offered a total of 20 million digital yuan to 100,000 residents. In October 2020, Shenzhen issued 50,000 digital red packets worth 200 yuan each. Local governments in some of these cities have been giving away electronic cash through lotteries to encourage citizens to try out the e-CNY. (Ant is the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.)įor now, though, the digital yuan can only be used in designated cities, including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xian, Qingdao, and Dalian, as well as Beijing and Winter Olympics venues outside the capital city. Social media and gaming giant Tencent Holdings recently added e-CNY as a payment option to its electronic wallet service WeChat Pay, while e-commerce platform operator JD.com supports e-CNY payments for purchases made in online stores operated by the company.Īlipay, WeChat Pay's main rival owned by Ant Group, has allowed e-CNY payments for eligible users since last year. Last year saw Chinese officials successfully expel most of the country’s Bitcoin mining operations over the Summer, effectively crushing the contribution to the Bitcoin network’s hashing power within the country, and pushing the miners that remain further underground.Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. It’s really trying to develop a digitized economy, and it’s trying to lay down infrastructure where the government can capture financial data, ” said Fanusie. “We assess that China’s playing a different game or strategy with this project.
Fellow at the Center for a New American Security at the SALT Conference in October 2021. “What China is doing should be framed as less a currency issue…and more of a data issue,” said Yaya J. In the roughly 700-word document, the PBoC mentions “digital” (数字) 14 times.Īlthough neither blockchain technology, nor cryptocurrency is specifically discussed in the high-level overview, the trend has been toward exerting greater control over the trajectory of the country’s digital economy to ensure government access to financial data. The eCNY is expected to eventually replace the payment rails offered by WeChat Pay and AliPay, the leading digital payment services in the country, Blockworks previously reported.Ĭoinciding with the digital wallet release, the People’s Bank of China unveiled its “FinTech Development Plan (2022-2025)” today, which shows the importance financial planners place on the digitization of the economy. The new app will link users’ phone numbers to payment services provided by commercial banks using the Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC).
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