Swipe your bracelet, watch or even a walking stick, and you can pay for your goods with digital yuan.
These are just some of the quirky gadgets that China’s central bank, lenders and technology giants are showcasing to Beijing residents ahead of a broader rollout of the e-currency when the city hosts the Winter Olympics in February. The wearable devices, embedded with a digital yuan chip, can be tapped against a scanner, transferring the currency from an e-wallet without needing an internet connection.
The People’s Bank of China is pulling out all the stops to promote the e-currency to a population far more used to transacting on a daily basis using Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat Pay and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Alipay. The central bank has rolled out pilot programs in 11 cities and regions from Shenzhen to Hainan so far and has recruited major banks and technology firms to help get an otherwise indifferent population to make the switch to the e-yuan.
