Residents who received "red packets" of digital yuan use the money in stores in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. Photo: Li Hao/GT

China will expand the utility area for the digital yuan from the first four trial cities in Shenzhen in South China’s Guangdong Province, Suzhou in East China’s Jiangsu Province, Xiongan New Area in North China’s Hebei Province and Chengdu in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, to province wide testing, to continue push the innovation of China’s recognized cryptocurrency, cnstock.com reported on Monday. 

Fan Yifei, Deputy Governor at People's Bank of China, China’s central bank, made the remarks at an economic forum held on Monday, stating that the central bank has been accelerating financial digitalization from the beginning of this year, and had issued development outline for financial technology covering the period 2022-25.

Fan underlined the need to secure the key technologies for enhancing nation’s financial system, and to build financial infrastructure that can adapt to the development of digital economy, in order to support economy transformation. 

At present, a replicable and promotable platform for digital yuan has been formed across multiple sectors of retail & wholesale, catering, leisure, tourism and government payment via both online and offline channels, said Fan, and the utility of digital yuan in the first four trial cities which was set in 2019 is expected to be expanded to the provincial range.
Global Times