China’s central bank intends to enlarge the area covered by trials of its digital yuan currency in four regions of the country. A top representative of the monetary authority announced the move while highlighting that the People’s Bank has been stepping up digitalization efforts this year.
China: 4 provinces increase digital yan coverage
Chinese authorities are going to expand the digital yuan’s area of application in four of the first pilot cities in the project to the rest of their respective provinces. These are Shenzhen in South China’s Guangdong Province, Suzhou in the eastern Jiangsu Province, Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province in the north, and Chengdu in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.
With the upgrade to province-wide testing in these regions, the government in Beijing hopes to “continue to push the innovation of China’s recognized cryptocurrency,” the English-language newspaper Global Times wrote, quoting a report by the Cnstock.com business news portal published on Monday.
The plan was announced by Deputy Governor of People’s Bank of China (PBOC) Fan Yifei during an economic forum this week. High-ranking officials stressed that financial digitization has been an ongoing process since the start of the year by the monetary regulator. He noted that the authority has outlined the country’s financial technology development for the period until 2025.
Fan also underscored the importance of securing key technologies in order to enhance China’s financial system and build financial infrastructure that can adapt to the development of the digital economy and support the transformation of the Chinese economy.
The PBOC executive noted that the digital yuan was used in multiple sectors of economic activity, such as retail, wholesale, catering and leisure. It also facilitates government payments via online and offline channels. The PBOC executive insisted on the expansion of the use of the digital currency in four pilot cities to include the provinces.
Fan Yifei’s latest statements come after earlier this month the deputy governor urged for widening of the array of use-case scenarios for China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC). In order to make the e-CNY platform more convenient for all users, he called for better integration of digital yuan with traditional electronic payment methods.
Are you optimistic that China will expand its test areas for the digital Yuan in the coming year? Leave a comment below.
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