China has been at the forefront of the CBDC race. While countries across the globe have just started looking into the prospects of a central bank-issued digital currency, China has already launched a pilot version of the mobile wallet for the digital yuan, e-CNY.
Unlike other countries, China took digitalization quite seriously. The country has been working on its CBDC for quite some time now. The Chinese government went on to endure immense backlash during the testing phase of the digital yuan. An array of speculations suggesting that the Chinese government would steal its citizens of their financial freedom were making the rounds. Despite this, the government remained untethered and was all set to employ e-CNY.
Both, iOS as well as Android users would be able to access this application on their respective app stores. A local news outlet, BlockBeats China announced the launch of the e-CNY app on Twitter. The tweet read,
“This App is the official service platform of China’s CBDC for individual users to carry out pilot trials, providing e-CNY personal wallet opening and management, e-CNY exchange and circulation services.”
Furthermore, in order to download and activate the wallet, users are required to be located in either one of the below-mentioned 11 regions in China. This list involved, Changsha, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Xiong’an, Xi’an, Chengdu, Hainan, Qingdao, Suzhou, Dalian, and the Winter Olympics area.
China leads the CBDC race
The Chinese government along with the People’s Bank of China have been tirelessly working towards the launch of the CBDC. The Chinese CBDC was even designed to be used during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. But, reluctance from the US government lowered its prospects.
Albeit this, the CBDC program of China made tremendous progress. Recently, the country carried out its first phase of testing cross-border transactions with the digital yuan between China and Hong Kong. The first phase focused on all the technicalities like payments and transfers. However, the second phase will involve the linking of the CBDC to Hong Kong’s interbank digital payment system, Faster Payment System [FPS].