China’s digital currency push faces an uphill battle
The Yomiuri Shimbun, The Japan News/ANN
Tue 22 Feb 2022 12:00 AM Last updated on: Tue Feb 22 2022 00:00
The e-CNY app is seen on a smartphone at the Main Media Center in Beijing on Saturday. PHOTO: The Yomiuri Shimbun/ANN
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The e-CNY app is seen on a smartphone at the Main Media Center in Beijing on Saturday. PHOTO: The Yomiuri Shimbun/ANN
At Beijing Winter Games venues, Chinese digital currency has been designated as the official means of payment.
China has focused on promoting the use of this digital yuan, or e-CNY.
For all the latest news, follow the Daily Star’s Google News channel. To pay in digital currency, the official smartphone app or a physical e-CNY card can be used.
China is trying to show the world that the country’s digital currency is in the stage of practical use, but private smartphone payment systems are already widespread in the country, which makes it difficult to expand the use of the e-CNY.
“It’s the same as using WeChat Pay or other similar systems,” a 21-year-old university student who volunteered for the Beijing Olympics said on Saturday, referring to a smartphone payment system. popular in China.
She had just purchased Olympic items with digital yuan from an official store in Beijing’s Main Media Center.
To pay through the official app, users need to select a bank that supports e-CNY service, then register their mobile phone number and password, before charging the digital yuan in advance. Payment is completed with a scan of their QR code at checkout.
The physical e-CNY card has been recommended for a short period to foreign visitors to China who do not have a Chinese-issued ID or bank account in the country. Card users scan their passport at a designated automatic currency exchange machine and insert foreign currency to receive the card loaded in e-CNY. Then they just tap the card to pay.
In October 2020, China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China, launched a pilot program involving the public. Currently, programs are underway in 12 cities, including Beijing and Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, where the Winter Games venues are located.
China, however, is struggling to increase the number of e-CNY users. The cumulative amount of digital transactions in yuan was 87.5 billion yuan (about 1.6 trillion yen) at the end of 2021, but this was only 0.02% of the transaction value of mobile payment services in 2020.