China Central Bank Digital Currency ‘Digital Yuan’ Already Conducted Pilot Transactions Worth 1.1 Billion Yuan
The Chinese central bank - People’s Bank of China (PBoC) - recently released a statement that they want to be the first to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC). It seems that the PBoC is very much on its way to achieving this milestone.
On Monday, October 5, the South China Morning Post reported that the Chinese central bank has already tested pilot transactions worth 1.1 billion yuan. During his talk at the Sibos banking and financial conference on Monday, PBoC’s deputy governor Fan Yifei said that nearly 3.3 million transactions have been processed fo far with the Digital Yuan.
China has been actively conducting tests for the past few months in partnership with several retailers across major cities in the country. Fan added that so far the Digital Yuan program has made “positive progress”.
They have reportedly tested and implemented over 6700 use-cases of the Digital Yuan right from bill payments, government services, and transactions. “PBOC regards digital renminbi as an important financial infrastructure for the future,” Fan added.
The governor noted that more than 113,300 personal digital wallets and 8,800 corporate wallets have been opened as part of the pilot program. The Digital Yuan is used for several different payment methods like facial recognition, bar code, as well as tap-and-go transactions.
The Digital Yuan also dubbed the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DC/EP) by the PBoC, is the biggest ever cashless push by the Chinese state. In cooperation with the Shenzhen government, China also released e-yuan red packets for 5000 healthcare and medical workers involved in treatment of COVID-19.
China is currently leading by a big margin when it comes to testing the state-owned digital currency. However, the Asian economic giant wants to have tight control over the use of cryptocurrencies. It has gone to back all the public cryptocurrencies three years back.
The immediate challenger to China for a CBDC is the European Central Bank. Last week, the ECB applied for the Digital Euro trademark and said that it has intensified its work on having a pan-Europe CBDC.
The ECB President said: “The Eurosystem has so far not made a decision on whether to introduce a digital euro. But, like many other central banks around the world, we are exploring the benefits, risks and operational challenges of doing so. We have a duty to play an active role in balancing the risks and benefits of innovation in payments, so that money continues to serve Europeans well.”