In recent months, the use of digital RMB in China has surged. Personal wallet opening increased by over 6.7 times. More institutions that later joined the digital renminbi wallet have access to more and more application scenarios.
On November 3, the Hong Kong Fintech Week 2021 conference was held. In the “Retail CBDC: A Lesson from the Fast Movers & the Road Ahead” roundtable forum, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China, introduced the latest digital RMB progress.
Digital RMB is making rapid progress
In this roundtable meeting, Mu Changchun mentioned the three major challenges of officially launching the digital renminbi.
- Improve terminal construction. Although the current digital RMB pilot project has been operating very smoothly, the construction of the system’s use environment is still on the way.
- We seek diversified smart, customized wallets, and more cases to improve user experience.
- Establish, transform and upgrade the digital renminbi system for merchants.
- Improve safety and risk management mechanisms. Central bank digital currency is extremely easy to become the target of hackers, so security is the primary task of system development.
Currently, the People’s Bank of China is cooperating with the international community to conduct security training. In the entire life cycle of the digital renminbi, the safe management of the operating system is always ensured. Including encryption algorithms, financial information security, data security and business continuity to ensure system security and stability.
Digital renminbi wallet has also made some new developments. The latest version of the digital renminbi App has been added to China Merchants Bank and WeBank.
Previously, Fan Yifei, vice governor of the People’s Bank of China, revealed that China Merchants Bank has recently been approved to join the two-tier operating institution system.
Merchants have achieved remarkable results in helping the popularization of digital renminbi
In the roundtable meeting, Mu Changchun also pointed out that as of October 22, 2021, the cumulative transaction value of digital renminbi reached approximately 62 billion yuan. 140 million personal digital renminbi wallets and 10 million public wallets have been opened. In addition, more than 1.55 million merchants have supported digital renminbi wallet payments, with a total of more than 150 million transactions. Involving public utilities, catering services, transportation, retail and government services and other fields.
As of June 30, 2021, the number of digital RMB pilot scenarios has exceeded 1.32 million. More than 20.87 million personal wallets and 3.51 million public wallets were opened. The cumulative number of transactions was 70.75 million, with an amount of approximately 34.5 billion yuan.
From the perspective of popularization and use, the digital renminbi is making rapid progress. By comparison, in less than 4 months, the number of personal wallet openings increased by more than 6.7 times, and the number of public wallet openings increased by 2.8 times. The cumulative transaction amount is close to 1.8 times, and the cumulative transaction number exceeds 2 times.