Chinese Central Bank Onboards Over 20 Firms to Test Digital Yuan

To accelerate the rollout of the digital yuan, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has partnered with over 20 companies in the country to test it in the real world.

The central bank first inked partnerships with four state-owned banks - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (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 Huawei.

The banks also converted a part of their central bank deposits into digital currencies and identifying sectors to push the digital currencies. They also have developed and tested the wallet platforms needed to store the digital currency.

The real-world testing was first initiated with the distribution of partial salary of the state employees in four cities - Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu, and Xiong’an - in May.

Major private players to test digital yuan

However, the most notable signing happened earlier this month when the central bank onboarded the Chinese ride-hailing giant DiDi Chuxing to test the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP).

Notably, the platform has 550 million users with its fleet across over 400 cities that make a large and varied sample size for testing digital yuan.

The central bank also partnered with Tencent-backed food delivery startup Meituan Dianping for trialing the digital currency.

These two partnerships created a lot of buzz in the international markets as they have hundreds of millions of users and will bring the digital currency directly to the hands of the public.

During the development phase, the PBoC also collaborated with Fintech Fintech Financial Technology (fintech) is defined as ay technology that is geared towards automating and enhancing the delivery and application of financial services. The origin of the term fintechs can be traced back to the 1990s where it was primarily used as a back-end system technology for renowned financial institutions. However, it has since grown outside the business sector with an increased focus upon consumer services.What Purpose Do Fintechs Serve?The main purpose of fintechs would be to suppl Financial Technology (fintech) is defined as ay technology that is geared towards automating and enhancing the delivery and application of financial services. The origin of the term fintechs can be traced back to the 1990s where it was primarily used as a back-end system technology for renowned financial institutions. However, it has since grown outside the business sector with an increased focus upon consumer services.What Purpose Do Fintechs Serve?The main purpose of fintechs would be to suppl Read this Term and Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl Read this Term giants including Alipay and WeChat.

Apart from the confirmed ones, the monetary regulator is also reportedly in talks with Bilibili, a video streaming app with a user base of over 170 million. It is also asked retail chains including McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Subway for the trial of the digital yuan, but the details of that are not public yet.

International push for CBDC development

While China is moving towards the digital yuan launch, other international counterparts are also diving into testing their digital fiat. Most recently, the French central bank named eight partners to test the concept of digital currencies while the bank of Japan has formed a new committee to examine the concept.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Lithuania even issued its digital currency, called LBCOIN, becoming the first in European regulator to issue a central bank digital currency (CBDC).