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China digital currency: Beijing to expand e-CNY trials to four entire provinces including Guangdong
- The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will expand e-CNY trials to Guangdong, Hebei Jiangsu, and Sichuan provinces, an official said on Monday
- The number of users, merchants and transactions is ‘steadily growing’, Fan Yifei, the bank’s deputy governor, said at a financial forum in Suzhou
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China will expand trials of its e-CNY electronic currency from a limited number of cities and areas to the entirety of four provinces, including Guangdong, as the nation’s central bank seeks to give a big boost to the adoption of the sovereign digital currency.
In addition to Guangdong, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will expand the e-CNY trials to Jiangsu, Hebei and Sichuan provinces, Fan Yifei, the bank’s deputy governor, said at a financial forum in Suzhou city in Jiangsu on Monday.
China’s first batch of digital yuan tests, which began in 2020, took place in four cities: Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan and Chengdu. Fan did not give a specific timetable but said the expansion will happen “at a proper time”.
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Calling the e-CNY “an important infrastructure in the digital era”, Fan said the number of users, merchants and transactions is “steadily growing”, but he did not provide details. The latest disclosure indicated that there were 261 million unique users at the end of 2021, a number that had nearly doubled since October.
China’s active roll-out of its sovereign digital currency has moved ahead of other major central banks like the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan.
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