China's central bank Photo: CFP

 

China will push for the expanded use of the digital yuan from the first four trial cities -- 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 ramp up innovation of the digital yuan, cnstock.com reported on Monday. 

Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China (PBC), the central bank, made the remarks at an economic forum held on Monday, stating that the central bank has been accelerating financial digitalization since January, and it has released a development outline for financial technology covering the period 2022-25.

Fan underlined the need to secure the technologies for enhancing the nation's financial system, and to build financial infrastructure that can adapt to the development of the digital economy and support an economic transformation. 

A replicable and promotable platform for the digital yuan has been formed across multiple sectors of retail and wholesale, catering, leisure, tourism and government payments via both online and on-site channels, said Fan. The utility of the digital yuan in the first four trial cities, which began in 2019, is expected to be expanded to cover entire provinces.

PBC data showed that in the first five months of 2022, domestic transactions using the digital yuan reached about 83 billion yuan ($11.83 billion) with 264 million transactions. The use of the digital yuan is now possible in 4.57 million stores in trial points of 15 provinces and municipalities. 

Multiple cities including Shenzhen, the Xiongan New Area and Chengdu distributed over 300 million yuan of digital yuan red packets in May to local residents to boost consumption, an official from China's central bank said. 

The first publicly available digital yuan hardware wallet - named "low-carbon card" - was unveiled at the 2022 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) on September 1.

The low-carbon card can be used in all kinds of online and on-site consumption scenarios, including food delivery, hotel bookings and transportation, according to a statement sent from Chinese food delivery platform Meituan to the Global Times.

As of the end of August this year, more than 7.3 million users had participated in various low-carbon consumption promotion activities on the platform in trial cities of the digital yuan, according to Meituan. 
 
Global Times