The People’s Bank of China plans to expand the trial of its e-CNY digital currency to Jiangsu, Hebei and Sichuan as well as Guangdong.
Rapid growth of e-CNY in the Chinese market
After two years of testing, four other major provinces, including the most populous Guangdong, will experiment with the digital yuan, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) newspaper reported on Tuesday (September 20th). The digital Yuan, also called e-CNY, is essentially a digitized version of the official Chinese currency, the Renminbi (RMB). It is a digital currency that acts as an electronic payment method. It is issued by the Central Bank of China and is mainly used for making small purchases.
This currency, explains Coindesk, initially took the form of lotteries, and then very quickly became accessible via a mobile application, in which a greater number of Chinese citizens were able to win relatively small amounts of this currency. To facilitate adoption, merchants are encouraged to accept payment in e-CNY. According to the latest reports, transactions in this new currency are estimated at 87.5 billion yuan ($13.78 billion).
China leading race to implement digital currency
The Chinese central bank plans to study the impact that the use of this currency can have on the country’s financial system. No date is known for the moment for an official launch of the project on a national scale. According to crypto analysts, China’s plans are significantly more advanced, while those of South Korea and Sweden also entered a testing phase over the past year.
For other specialists, this advance is only an additional tool for monitoring and financial tracing.