Since the beginning of March, the news that the third batch of digital RMB pilot areas in China will appear has triggered heated discussion. Now, the boots finally landed.
On April 2, the official website of the people’s Bank of China said that it had decided to expand the scope of the pilot in an orderly manner at the Symposium on digital RMB research and Development held by the people’s Bank of China.
From the perspective of the new pilot areas, a total of 11 cities are involved, including Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen, as well as 6 cities hosting the Asian Games in Zhejiang Province (Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua).
Previously, digital RMB has carried out two batches of pilot projects at the end of 2019 and November 2020 respectively, forming a “10 + 1” pattern (i.e. Shenzhen, Suzhou, xiong’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian and Winter Olympics).
At the same time, on April 2, it was also mentioned in the news released by the people’s Bank of China that Beijing and Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province will be turned into pilot areas after the pilot of 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and winter Paralympic Games.
This means that with the appearance of the third batch of pilot areas, the pilot of digital RMB has expanded from the previous “10 + 1” pattern to the current 23 cities, which has more than doubled in number.
From a national perspective, many provinces and cities have successively written digital RMB into their development plans and clearly proposed to actively strive for the pilot of digital RMB.
Why can these cities become pilot areas of digital RMB? For digital RMB, what results have been achieved in the previous pilot? In the future, will digital RMB payment often appear in supermarkets and vegetable markets?
why are these cities selected
From 2014 to 2016, the people’s Bank of China established a research group on legal digital currency to start the research work related to legal digital currency. In 2016, the digital currency Research Institute was established and put forward the top-level design and basic features of digital RMB that year.
After years of research and development, at the end of 2019, digital RMB was piloted in Shenzhen, Suzhou, xiong’an, Chengdu and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In November 2020, six new pilot areas will be added, including Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao and Dalian, forming a “10 + 1” pilot pattern.
Why are these regions included in the pilot scope of digital RMB? The white paper on the research and development progress of China’s digital RMB (hereinafter referred to as the white paper) released in July 2021 gives two reasons.
On the one hand, the white paper said that the selection of pilot areas comprehensively considered the national major development strategy, regional coordinated development strategy and local industrial and economic characteristics.
On the other hand, the white paper said that the pilot areas “cover different regions such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Beijing Tianjin Hebei, central, western, northeast and Northwest China, which is conducive to the experimental evaluation of the application prospects of digital RMB in different regions of China.”
The reporter of times weekly found that the third batch of pilot areas announced at present also meet the characteristics of the above two aspects.
For example, Chongqing, located in the western region, has played an important role in the national strategy of building Chengdu Chongqing double city economic circle; Tianjin, located in the Beijing Tianjin Hebei region, also plays an important role in the national strategy for the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.
Guangzhou, located in the Pearl River Delta, has the blessing of the national strategy of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Bay area. The six cities hosting the Asian Games in Zhejiang Province have been included in the third batch of pilot projects of digital RMB. The considerations behind it are undoubtedly the same as that the Winter Olympics scene has become a pilot area.
The data show that the digital RMB pilot covers more than 400000 scenes of the Winter Olympic Games, with a transaction amount of 9.6 billion yuan. The document issued in Beijing in March this year pointed out that it is necessary to summarize the experience in the construction of payment service environment for Beijing Winter Olympic Games, deepen the pilot of digital RMB and gradually improve the payment convenience of international passengers.
As an international sports competition, the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, which will be held in September this year, will attract nearly 10000 athletes from 45 Asian countries (regions) and more than 10 countries (regions) in Oceania. In addition, many technical representatives and media reporters attended.
For the pilot project of digital RMB, the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou will undoubtedly help to further enrich the pilot scenario and summarize the experience of improving the payment convenience of international passengers.
The reporter of times weekly found that the expansion of the pilot scope is in line with the people’s Bank of China’s plan for digital RMB.
The previously released white paper pointed out that we should further expand the coverage of pilot test application scenarios, achieve full coverage of application scenarios in specific pilot areas, and build a digital RMB ecosystem.
However, the white paper also stressed that we should continue to steadily promote the pilot research and development of digital RMB, and there is no preset launch schedule.
pilot scenario increased by more than 6 times in half a year
Previously, in the pilot process of digital RMB, the number of “early adopters” was limited to a certain extent mainly through the invitation of the white list.
On January 4 this year, the digital RMB (pilot version) app was put on the shelves in major app stores. The download instructions show that the white list users in the pilot areas selected by the designated digital RMB operators can register this app.
However, on April 4, the reporter of times weekly found that when checking the digital RMB (pilot version) app in the Android App store, the application introduction column said: “digital RMB will carry out R & D pilot in the pilot areas and pilot scenarios, and the pilot customers can register the digital RMB app”, and there was no relevant words of “white list” users.
With the implementation of the third batch of pilot projects, the number of people covered by digital RMB will be further expanded.
The reporter of times weekly found that according to the 2020 national census, the number of permanent residents in 23 cities that have been included in the pilot has exceeded 278 million.
This means that the current digital RMB pilot covers more than 278 million people, accounting for nearly one fifth of the country’s total population (1.443 billion).
From the pilot scenario, the current digital RMB mainly covers the fields of living payment, catering services, transportation, shopping consumption, government services and so on.
Take Guangzhou, the third batch of pilot cities, as an example. After downloading and installing the “digital RMB app”, the reporter of times weekly can successfully register and open digital RMB payment.
Through the visit, the reporter of times weekly found that some offline shops in Guangzhou, such as supermarkets, vipshop and mingchuang premium products, can use digital RMB to pay.
In addition, Guangzhou citizens can also use digital RMB to spend on takeout, bicycles, vegetables and other scenes on meituan platform, and receive meituan’s limited digital RMB consumption gift package.
In other words, Guangzhou citizens can register to use digital RMB, covering multiple online and offline scenes.
Since the second half of 2021, with the Winter Olympics and meituan increasing the exploration of digital RMB commercialization, the digital RMB pilot scenario, opening wallet and transaction amount have increased rapidly.
In January this year, the data disclosed by the people’s Bank of China showed that as of December 31, 2021, there were more than 8.0851 million digital RMB pilot scenarios, 261 million personal wallets were opened, and the transaction amount was 87.565 billion yuan.
According to the data disclosed in the white paper, as of June 30, 2021, there were more than 1.32 million digital RMB pilot scenarios, more than 20.87 million personal wallets were opened, and the cumulative transaction amount was about 34.5 billion yuan.
Comparing the two data, it can be found that in only half a year, the number of digital RMB pilot scenarios increased from 1.32 million to 8.0851 million, the number of personal wallets opened increased from more than 20.87 million to 261 million, and the transaction amount increased from 34.5 billion yuan to 87.565 billion yuan.
Yang Haiping, a researcher at the securities and Futures Research Institute of the Central University of Finance and economics, said in an interview with the reporter of the times weekly that with the emergence of early innovation achievements, the digital RMB pilot in 2022 will be appropriately accelerated under a stable tone.
“According to the existing work foundation, pilot measures will be further launched in pilot areas, operators, application scenarios, wallet carriers and other aspects in 2022, and the combined applications of different dimensions will be richer,” Yang Haiping said.
Yang Haiping believes that the next step should be to optimize the acceptance environment, cultivate usage habits, accelerate promotion, and let more people accept and use digital RMB. At the same time, we can work with relevant subjects to expand the mechanism of application scenarios and continue to study and explore the interaction between digital RMB and existing electronic payment tools.
In the future, with the further promotion of the pilot test, digital RMB may fly into the homes of ordinary people.
