As of May 15, the People’s Bank of China’s local office reported 288 million yuan (US$43 million) in total digital yuan trading volume across 1.576 million transactions in China’s southwestern municipality of Chongqing.
The record-breaking stats
According to the PBoC Chongqing branch, around 1.1 million digital yuan wallets have been opened in Chongqing, with 1.06 million individual wallets and 42,400 cooperative wallets for commercial operations.
With a population of nearly 32 million people in 2020, Chongqing is roughly the size of Austria. The average digital yuan transaction in Chongqing was 182 yuan, which is enough to buy four Big Mac meals in China. The pilot city for the digital yuan Jinhua recently released its e-CNY results, revealing that the average transaction was insufficient to buy a single Big Mac meal.
On April 4, Chongqing and Jinhua became the latest towns to join China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials, which have already been running in 23 locations since October 2020.
China to expand in other cities… know why?
China’s Central Bank plans to expand the use of the digital yuan in other cities.
Bloomberg reported on Saturday (April 3) that the People’s Bank of China aims to expand its digital yuan trial to more cities.
This is due to the positive market reaction to the central bank digital currency (CBDC) in both the pilot cities and the Winter Olympic locations where it was tested.
According to the study, transaction scales had been “steadily increasing.”
More privacy protection and crime prevention will be among the next steps. The bank will also investigate the coins’ influence on the financial system.
Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian, and the closed-loop of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games hosted the trials.
Nationally issued CBDCs, such as the digital yuan, have the potential to make both retail and interbank payments easier and more streamlined, as well as offer cross-border benefits.
To do so, they’d have to be able to communicate with one another, which is the purpose of Project Dunbar, which comprises Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa’s central banks.
