"To ensure managed anonymity, we need to strengthen legislation and improve top-level design," Mu Changchun, head of the PBOC's digital currency research institute, said in September.Īt a press conference last week, PBOC Governor Yi Gang discussed a number of major issues for the bank - including inflation, interest rate policies and financial sector reform - but made no mention of the e-CNY's progress. The timetable for the e-CNY's mass roll-out is yet to be confirmed by the PBOC, which has said that it must first formulate relevant administrative measures to enhance personal information protection for users. The two super apps each offer a myriad of services, from retailing and catering to medical services, that ensure convenience in their respective ecosystems to keep subscribers from looking to engage with other platforms. Getting both WeChat Pay and Alipay as express payment options on the e-CNY app shows an increased effort by the People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, to spur adoption of the sovereign digital currency amid a lethargic take-up by consumers since pilot trials were started in 2019.Ĭhina's e-CNY roll-out, two years ahead of any other global monetary authority, offers a crucial case study to India, Sweden, Japan, the United States and Britain, which are all in various stages of research or implementation of their own versions of central bank digital currencies.Ĭhina, however, has mostly become a cashless society because of the ubiquitous use nationwide of Alipay and WeChat Pay, each of which have hundreds of millions of daily active users on the mainland. Alipay activated the e-CNY payment option on its platform in May 2021, while WeChat Pay followed suit in January 2022.
Photo: Shutterstock>īoth Alipay and WeChat Pay have earlier committed to help promote the country's digital fiat money. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The mobile icons of China's e-CNY platform and Tencent Holdings' multipurpose WeChat super app are displayed on a smartphone screen. The mobile icons of China's e-CNY platform and Tencent Holdings' multipurpose WeChat super app are displayed on a smartphone screen. Hu indicated, however, that the two mobile payment platforms would be "affected to a certain extent", as they "adapt to how the digital yuan is processed". "As the two mobile payment giants, WeChat Pay and Alipay are expected to provide powerful support for the application and promotion of e-CNY through its express payment system," said Hu Hao, a researcher at Beijing-based research institute Kandong.ĭo you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team. The latest express payment option is now available to e-CNY users covered in the ongoing pilot trials, which includes 26 cities and 5.6 million merchants across the country, amid the sovereign digital currency's sluggish state of adoption. China's sovereign digital currency (e-CNY) app has added Tencent Holdings' WeChat Pay as its second "express payment" option, nearly three months after initially having Ant Group's Alipay for such payments on its platform.
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