More than 20 publicly listed companies have announced plans to begin marketing products and services related to the digital yuan, such as a mobile phone SIM card that can pay for bike rentals, a digital yuan payment system for schools, and hardware wallets, the China Securities Daily reported.
Most popular products
With respect to hardware, products include POS devices as well as ATMs dispensing the digital currency of the Central Bank of China. E-CNY hard wallets offer the ability to get and pay RMBs, which can be based on IoT devices, IC cards, wearables, and mobile terminals.
Payment systems used in cross-border payments, schools, and public transport are among the software products. In October of last year, a company introduced an e-CNY bus fare payment system. In March this year, the first e-CNY payment system for a middle school in China was launched.
Four banks release hardware wallets
Four banks using e-CNY (of six total) have released hardware wallets in various shapes, such as ski gloves, watches, cards, mascots, or badges. Ski gloves and mascots were created with the Winter Olympics in mind.
Government popularizes use of digital currency with $50M package
The Chinese government has distributed 17 rounds of e-CNY red packets in eight cities worth 321.2 million yuan in total, the equivalent of about $50 million. Exhibitions in the country are designating areas to promote these products, such as the ongoing China International Fair for Trade in Services and the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which took place back in July.
Tens of billions circulating on lender platforms according to digital currency reports
According to e-CNY use data in the reports of several large state-owned banks, tens of billions of yuan are circulating on lender platforms. This comes against the backdrop of digital yuan testing.
Construction bank opens 1.2M corporate e-CNY wallets
At the end of June, almost 1.2 million corporate e-CNY wallets and 7.23 million personal e-CNY wallets were set up at the China Construction Bank. In its semi-annual report, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China stated it had opened 3.56 million personal and 700,000 corporate wallets in digital yuan in the same time frame. Finally, the Bank of Communications set up 1.16 million personal and 130,000 corporate wallets. Executive VP of the bank Qian Bin told media that e-CNY transactions totaled 2.5 billion yuan.
