Shenzhen and Suzhou digital renminbi public betas have come to an end one after another, and the amount of consumption red envelopes reached more than 27.7 million yuan. Press the accelerator key when landing in 2020
Over 140,000 people won the "early adopters" digital RMB
The pilot program of digital RMB consumption red packets in Suzhou ended at the end of December. This is also the second city after Shenzhen to conduct public testing.
This event has been open for appointment since December 5th and lasted for nearly a month.
On December 29, Beijing also had a digital RMB application scenario.
The reporter learned that the stores that started the application scenario test can use the upgraded ICBC POS machine to scan the payment QR code in the user's digital renminbi wallet, and also support users to "touch" payment.
The digital renminbi test has undoubtedly pressed the accelerator key during this year. From the first batch of pilot sites announced by the Central Bank's Digital Research Institute in April, Shenzhen and Suzhou have been publicly tested, and then the list of the second batch of pilot regions has flowed out, and many places are like horse racing.
In addition, the application scenarios have also expanded from internal agencies and banks to small high-frequency retail payment scenarios such as restaurants and supermarkets.
Two rounds of public testing
Consumption of more than 27.7 million red envelopes is mainly used for supermarkets, catering, etc.
The digital renminbi officially unveiled its mystery, starting from the public beta.
In October, the Shenzhen United Central Bank launched the "Luohu Digital RMB Red Packet" campaign. About two months later, the Suzhou City United Central Bank launched the "Double 12 Suzhou Shopping Festival" digital RMB consumption red packet pilot.
A total of more than 2.6 million people participated in the draw in the two rounds of public testing. Among the 150,000 lucky winners, 144,200 successfully received red envelopes, accounting for more than 95%.
In terms of consumption amount, the two rounds of testing consumed a total of more than 27.7 million red envelopes.
Shenzhen officials revealed that some of the winning individuals also recharged their digital wallets, with a recharge consumption amount of 901,000 yuan.
There are also some differences between the two public betas.
For example, the Shenzhen pilot program covers more than 3,000 merchants in Luohu District, and the Suzhou pilot program covers nearly 10,000 merchants in the city.
There are several new highlights in the Suzhou pilot activities, including support for online consumption on JD.com for the first time, and "dual offline" payment testing.
From the open pilots in the two places, it is currently mainly used in small high-frequency retail payment scenarios, such as shopping malls, supermarkets, daily retail, and catering consumption.
The scenario of the digital renminbi test does not stop there. As such, some of the benefits of some civil servants in Xiangcheng District, Suzhou have been distributed in the form of digital renminbi, and some banks in Shenzhen have also conducted internal testing.
Fan Yifei, deputy governor of the central bank, once revealed that as of the end of August 2020, there have been more than 6,700 pilot scenarios for digital RMB nationwide, covering areas such as living payment, catering services, transportation, shopping and consumption, and government services.
There is also plenty of room for imagination in future application scenarios.
The reporter visited during the trial period in Suzhou and learned that scenes such as smart parking and party dues payment have already landed in Xiangcheng District, Suzhou. The Suzhou locality is also in contact with platforms such as JD.com and Meituan.
Li Lihui, the former president of Bank of China, also said in an interview with reporters that after the digital wallet matures, it will become a tool for large-value payments.
Related to the application scenarios, there is also the continuous expansion of the "Friends Circle" of the Digital Research Institute. Companies such as Huawei, Didi, JD Digital, and Lakala have "entered the circle."
The roles of the participants and the spectrum of their relationships have become more clear.
Take JD.com as an example. The central bank and the Institute of Mathematics are the first level of cooperation of JD.com; the digital renminbi operating institution (currently the six state-owned banks) is the second level of cooperation; online and offline businesses, inside and outside the system This is the third level of cooperation.
Before the public test, the parties cooperated to conduct multiple rounds of testing.
Speaking of cooperation with institutions, Mu Changchun, director of the Central Bank's Institute of Mathematics, revealed that commercial banks with strong capital and technology capabilities are selected as designated institutions to take the lead in providing digital RMB exchange services.
But the circulating services can still be undertaken by third-party payment institutions and other commercial banks.
Multi-place horse racing
Six new places were added to the second batch of pilots, and Beijing has already implemented the scene
At the beginning of 2020, digital renminbi was just a new term for many people. Looking back at the end of the year, it has become an annual high-frequency word in the financial field, and it has become an option for tens of thousands of merchants and consumers to collect and pay. .
On December 29, a reporter from the Beijing News learned that the "Manmao Coffee" shop located in the Jintang Center West of Lize Bridge, Fengtai, launched a digital RMB application scenario test.
The store clerk told reporters that the test probably started last week, and there are currently no non-testers to pay with digital RMB wallets.
The clerk said that the shop uses an upgraded ICBC POS machine that can scan the payment QR code in the user's digital RMB wallet.
At the same time, a digital renminbi stand was placed in the store, which also supports users' "touch" payment.
From the geographical point of view, the coffee shop is located in Lize Business District, which is also the location of the Central Bank's Data Research Institute.
my country's central bank has been conducting research on legal digital currency since 2014.
In June last year, Facebook released the Libra coin white paper. Together with the "contactless payment" promoted by the epidemic this year, global attention to digital currency has increased, and the central bank's digital currency has also begun to "show its face" in my country's official statements.
In January this year, the central bank’s official micro-article stated that the central bank will basically complete the top-level design, standard formulation, function research and development, joint debugging and testing of legal digital currencies in 2019.
In April, the Institute of Science and Technology officially announced the first batch of pilot sites for the “four locations, one scene”, including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan, and Chengdu, plus the future Winter Olympics scenes. Since then, digital RMB pilots have been gradually launched in many places.
Recently, the list of the second batch of pilot sites has also been released, including Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Qingdao, Dalian, and Xi'an.
It is reported that a large state-owned bank recently opened a digital RMB wallet for some specific customers in Shanghai, focusing on the account opening experience, and no relevant usage scenarios have been implemented yet.
Some pilot cities have adopted this approach before. The reporter learned in late November that a local state-owned bank in Suzhou had proactively contacted company customers to open a digital RMB wallet for testing before the digital RMB red envelope pilot.
Coexist with cash
Digital RMB is equivalent to banknotes, and there is no official launch timetable
With the advancement of the digital RMB test, there have been some rumors in the market.
It was once reported that traders of second-hand housing in Shenzhen were forced to collect digital RMB.
Mu Changchun clarified that digital renminbi is equivalent to banknotes and coins, and digital renminbi can buy anything that paper money can buy.
As long as the people have a demand for paper money, the central bank will not stop the supply of paper money, and digital renminbi and paper money will coexist for a long time.
Talking about the current widespread mobile payment and cash usage issues, Mu Changchun said that currency is a public product that serves all groups in society.
The digital renminbi does not have a competitive relationship with payment tools such as WeChat and Alipay. The latter is the wallet, and the digital renminbi is the money in the wallet.
An authoritative person told the Shell Financial reporter that the digital renminbi can improve the directness and traceability of the currency. For example, in the pilot, you can see where the winners are spending, which is impossible with cash.
Zhang Zhijun, chief security architect of the World Bank, also told reporters earlier that the digital renminbi allows the central bank to obtain capital flow data faster and more directly, thereby shortening the reaction time of monetary policy.
However, the "China Financial Stability Report (2020)" released by the central bank in November stated that the digital renminbi system has not yet officially launched a timetable. The central bank will continue to advance the research and development of the digital renminbi system in a steady and orderly manner, and conduct pilot tests to ensure relevant The design will not have a big impact on the existing monetary and financial system and monetary policy transmission.
Li Lihui said that it is necessary to promptly formulate digital financial systems such as digital currency supervision and legal digital currency issuance. At the same time, it should be necessary to study viable paths and implementation plans for the issuance of China-led global digital currency.
Beijing News reporter Cheng Weimiao