China Expands Digital Yuan Trials to Other Cities

By Adedapo Adesanya

China is expanding its digital yuan trials to more cities, according to the Asian giant’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC).

Currently, the digital yuan trials are going on in 11 cities, and the central bank is planning to roll out the digitization trials in more regions.

The bank, over the weekend, said the ongoing process of digitisation trials will now focus on privacy protection and crime prevention.

According to a Bloomberg report, digital yuan trials were carried out in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, and Dalian.

Now, the bank is planning to expand the trials to Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua.

The cities in Zhejiang, which included the provincial capital of Hangzhou, will host the Asian Games in September.

The PBOC statement also said Beijing and Zhangjiakou, which co-hosted the Winter Games in February, will also become e-CNY’s pilot cities.

A number of application modes have taken shape in wholesale and retail, catering, tourism and payment of administrative fees, which cover both online and offline scenarios and can be replicated and promoted.

Digital yuan transactions in China amounted to nearly 87.57 billion yuan ($13.78 billion) by the end of 2021.

Digital Central Bank Currencies (DCBC) have begun to gain ground with Nigeria being the first proponent on the African continent, with the launching of the eNaira in October 2021.

Issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the digital currency is built on a private blockchain technology developed by Bitt Inc and has the same value as the fiat or physical currency.

The new currency can be accessed and used via the eNaira wallet (named Speed), a digital storage held and managed on a distributed ledger.

After five months, it has less than 150,000 downloads amid complaints and refusal of patronage by Nigerians.