Oyogist has learned that the Chinese central bank digital yuan wallet, (e-CNY) which is one of the fastest-growing apps in China right now, has Emassed a total of 261 million individual users (as opposed to enterprises), about one-fifth of the population.
Also, Over 87.5 billion yuan ($13.78 billion) worth of transactions has been made using the digital fiat currency, Zou Lan, head of financial markets at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), said at a press briefing.
Over the past two years, China has been piloting the use of digital yuan in a number of major cities, including Shenzhen.
Although PBOC (China’s top Exchange bank) has deemed bitcoin and the likes highly volatile, The digital yuan is by no means a manifestation of its interest in cryptocurrency; which has been banned in the country.
According to a research paper published by the Working Group on e-CNY Research and Development at the central bank last year, the digital yuan aims to:diversify the forms of cash provided to the public by the central bank, satisfy the public’s demand for digital cash and support financial inclusion;support fair competition, efficiency and safety of retail payment services; andecho the international initiative and explore the improvement of cross-border payment.
Though the e-CNY wallet is now downloadable in the Chinese app stores, only users in a list of pilot cities and at the upcoming Winter Olympics venue can actually sign up, top up their accounts and spend the virtual currency at one of the 8 million “pilot scenarios,” such as making purchases on Alibaba and paying Didi rides.
