CHINA GOES TO DEVELOP TESTS ON THE DIGITAL YUAN

China is pushing ahead with its tests to replace cash payments with the digital yuan, as evidenced by the fact that the wallet designed to accommodate the digital yuan has been launched via app. It will allow the wallet to be managed and the digital version of the yuan to be exchanged.

Started in April 2020 in large cities, now the results of the initiative are starting to arrive and they are absolutely comforting. The project is going strong, so much so that the digital yuan has obtained the status of physical currency, demonstrating how much the government believes in it, so much so that it relies on a blockchain system, the first among large economies.

If a year ago the pilot test carried out in four major cities had seen 2 billion yuan (299 million dollars) spent by citizens with 4 million transactions, now according to numbers provided by the director of the Digital Currency Institute of the People’s Bank of China, Mu Changchun, individual digital yuan accounts has reached 140 million, while corporate accounts amount to another 10 million.

Tests on China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) have continued and are now destined for 12 regions, so that the number of users accepting this type of payment has multiplied, and among these are catering, transportation, retail and government services. As reported by Reuters, data updated to October 2021 indicates that Chinese citizens have spent 62 billion yuan ($9.6 billion) using e-CNY wallets.

Obviously, the success of the digital yuan has been helped by Chinese citizens’ habit of buying online, and now the amount of traditional currency in circulation may be increasingly reduced in favor of digital currency.