Wednesday, China’s central bank said that 100 billion yuan ($13.9 billion) worth of transactions have been made through its e-CNY programme. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) released the reports through its official WeChat account.
The PBOC says that from late December 2021 to August 2022, 360 million transactions were processed in 15 provincial and municipal pilot areas. This made it possible for more than 5.6 million businesses to accept the digital currency.
Digital currencies are still in their early stages, but China is the leader in the race to develop them. By the end of 2021, 87.6 billion yuan’s worth of business had been done with e-CNY, according to the reports.
The People’s Bank of China says that in May, Shanghai got $4.5 million in free digital cash as part of the PBOC’s e-CNY subsidies to boost consumption, fight the pandemic, and promote low-carbon transportation.
As part of the Bank of International Settlements’ test of cross-border multiple central bank digital currency, the PBOC also linked up with Hong Kong’s digital payment system (mCBDC).
During the pilot programme, digital yuan has mostly been used to pay for things within China and at stores. But the bank wants to take it to a higher level by encouraging e-CNY transactions for business, tax, financial, and government purposes.
Even though most countries are still figuring out how to use digital currencies, China has been at the forefront of digital currency research since 2014. In 2016, the central bank set up the Digital Currency Research Institute to support the growth of the digital yuan.
The PBOC says that the value of digital currency in China is now more than 100 billion Yuan.
