China’s central bank said at the recent Sibos conference the digital yuan transactions exceeded 1 billion yuan in ongoing pilots which are expected to extend to the upcoming Winter Olympics in 2022.
Deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), Fan Yifei, said that 3.13 million transactions totaling over 1.1 billion yuan ($162 million) have been processed using the «e-yuan» (also known as the «Digital Currency Electronics Payment or DC/EP) across cities like Shenzhen and Xiongan.
6,700 use cases were implemented across bill payments, transport and government services. Payment methods in use include bar code, facial recognition and tap-and-go transactions.
«PBoC regards digital renminbi as an important financial infrastructure for the future,» Fan said in a recorded speech for the Sibos banking and financial conference yesterday.
E-Yuan Red Packets
One of the additional functionalities included is the «e-yuan red packets» which was used to reward around 5,000 healthcare workers involved in the coronavirus treatment.
Unlike the e-yuan, the e-yuan red packets can only be used at designated merchants within a district in Shenzhen, whose government was involved with the development of the solution.
Sovereign Leader
China continues to lead global governments in the digital currency pursuit for the first launch. According to Fan, around 113,300 personal digital wallets and 8,800 corporate digital wallets have been opened as part of the pilot programs.
The e-yuan project reportedly includes involvement from four state-owned banks (ICBC, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China), three telecom companies(China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom) and tech giant Tencent.
