China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) will not compete with WeChat Pay and Alipay, the head of the programme clarified for the first time on Sunday. The two digital wallets had a combined 94 per cent share of the country’s mobile payments industry in the second quarter, according to iResearch.
“They don’t belong to the same dimension. WeChat and Alipay are wallets, while the digital yuan is the money in the wallet,” said Mu Changchun, the head of the research institute for digital currency at the People’s Bank of China. He spoke in Shanghai at the 2nd Bund Summit, co-organised by the China Finance 40 Forum.