The expansion of the roll-out would make the Asian Games another showcase of digital CNY’s increasing applications
China's central bank announced that its official virtual currency (or e-CNY) pilot program will be expanded to another 11 domestic cities following its successful trial.
The program will cover Tianjin and Chongqing municipalities, Guangzhou in South China's Guangdong province, Fuzhou and Xiamen in East China's Fujian province, and six cities in East China's Zhejiang province that are to host the 2022 Asian Games. They include Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua and Huzhou, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement.
The digital currency has already been smoothly tried out in over 10 places from Shenzhen to Shanghai and Xiong'an New Area, adjacent to Beijing. In the past February, a total of CNY 9.6 billion (USD 1.5 billion) worth of transactions have been settled with e-CNY during the Beijing Winter Olympics. Beijing and Zhangjiakou were included in the program after tests during the 2022 Winter Games.
A number of application modes have taken shape both online and offline, covering wholesale and retail, catering, tourism to payment of administrative fees, which can be replicated and promoted, the central bank said.
As of December 31, 2021, the e-CNY had been applied to over 8.08 million scenarios, six times the number from half of a year ago. More than 261 million personal wallets have been opened, with CNY 87.565 billion worth of transactions completed.
Chase Science (300941: SZ) and Northking Information (002987:SZ) have participated in the trial of e-CNY in several localities. Zhejiang Zhengyuan Zhihui Tech Co., Ltd (300645:SZ) has actively engaged in the construction of innovative application scenarios for the Hangzhou Asian Games.