Further improve the digital renminbi ecosystem (online China)

　　Digital RMB has been piloted in many places for more than a year, application scenarios have continued to innovate, and public acceptance has continued to increase.

As of October 22 this year, 140 million personal wallets and 10 million corporate wallets have been opened for digital renminbi, with a total of 150 million transactions and a transaction volume close to 62 billion yuan.

Experts said that the popularization of digital renminbi should be broader and deeper to promote the full-scenario pilot, highlight the inclusive advantages of digital renminbi, further improve the digital renminbi ecosystem, and realize the unity of convenience and safety.

Accelerated expansion of pilot scenarios

　　In Beijing, Yaqi, a student at Renmin University of China, used digital renminbi to buy stationery in the school’s souvenir shop; in Shanghai, Aunt Wang could buy fresh fruits and vegetables with digital renminbi at the Zhenning vegetable market every day; in Chengdu, Ms. Chen used digital renminbi as her own Mothers in different places pay medical insurance premiums; in Xi’an, the "Fuxing One" smart party building platform has completed more than 100,000 digital renminbi party dues...From daily consumption to payment and tax payment, digital renminbi has penetrated into various life scenarios.

　　Recently, at the 6th Hong Kong Financial Technology Week Forum, Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People’s Bank of China, said that currently 1.55 million merchants support digital RMB wallets, covering public affairs, catering services, transportation, and shopping. Consumption and government services and other fields.

It is reported that the number of digital RMB pilot scenarios has exceeded 1.32 million at the end of June this year, and as of October 8 this number has exceeded 3.5 million.

　　Industry insiders believe that the accelerated expansion of digital renminbi pilot scenarios in the second half of this year is mainly due to the interaction with enterprises, especially Internet platforms.

For example, JD.com is the main platform for digital RMB to participate in e-commerce promotion scenarios.

Statistics show that in November this year, more than 100,000 people used digital renminbi to spend on the JD APP, and the cumulative number of orders exceeded 240,000.

Online promotional activities have the characteristics of high frequency and low amount and high instantaneous payment peak, which are conducive to accumulating experience for the popularization and promotion of digital renminbi in the future, making digital renminbi a better "money".

　　Yi Gang, governor of the People's Bank of China, pointed out that the digital renminbi currently mainly meets the domestic retail payment demand.

This means that the digital renminbi must be connected to as many scenarios as possible and be tested for stability and ease of use.

"In the future, the central bank will improve the design and use of digital renminbi in a targeted manner based on the pilot situation," said Yi Gang.

Inclusive advantages are more significant

　　"Take this card and post it in the swiping area to pay. It's really convenient!" Grandpa Lu, 67, experienced the joy of "touching" payment in the digital RMB pilot area of ​​the 4th CIIE.

The "card" in Grandpa Lu's hand is not a traditional bank card used for POS machine consumption, but a digital RMB visual chip card.

According to reports, in addition to IC card-style digital currency wallets, paper chips resembling red envelopes, wearable payment gloves and other "hard wallets" have also been developed, complementing digital RMB apps and other "soft wallets" to avoid old age Groups such as people and the disabled are isolated from the mobile payment scene by the digital divide.

　　"Digital RMB is a public product provided by the People's Bank of China for the domestic retail payment market. Its original intention was to promote the development of financial inclusion. Therefore, we have been working hard to implement the concept of financial inclusion during the pilot process of digital RMB." Mu Changchun said, The digital renminbi is designed to enhance the availability of payment services. It not only introduces hardware vehicles that meet the needs of specific groups, but also uses technologies such as near field communication (NFC) to develop offline payment functions, which is conducive to realizing convenient payments anytime, anywhere. Prevent the payment risk caused by the interruption of the communication network.

　　The inclusiveness of the digital renminbi is further extended in the green and low-carbon field.

In September of this year, Meituan launched the "Low-Carbon Cycling Season" in 9 digital RMB pilot areas including Beijing and Shanghai. Each user can receive a digital RMB low-carbon travel red envelope reward for paying for Meituan as long as they successfully sign up. Bicycle riding expenses.

According to reports, since Meituan’s access to the digital renminbi pilot program, more than 1 million users have opened personal digital renminbi wallets.

Balance convenience and safety

　　"Digital renminbi is very convenient to use, and it feels similar to Alipay and WeChat payment." Yaqi's evaluation of the digital renminbi consumer experience expresses the voice of most people.

However, a similar user experience cannot confuse the boundaries between digital renminbi and payment tools. There is a fundamental difference between "money" and "wallet".

Intuitively, the funds paid in digital renminbi enter the merchant account directly without any additional fees; when using Alipay and other tools to withdraw cash, you need to pay a handling fee for using the "wallet".

　　Industry insiders pointed out that third-party payment tools such as Alipay have made a great contribution to cultivating people's cashless transaction habits, and the ecosystem around payment tools has become more mature, which lays a certain foundation for the development of digital renminbi.

However, behind the strong stickiness of mainstream payment tool users, there are illegal activities such as excessive collection and sale of customer information and false transactions.

　　Although the use of digital renminbi does not conflict with third-party payment tools, objectively, the convenience of digital renminbi as a "better usable cash" is no less than that of third-party payment tools. Users are out of consideration for handling fees and privacy. Considering that it may be more inclined to choose a digital renminbi.

According to Yi Gang, one of the central bank's next research and development work is to promote the interaction between the digital renminbi and existing electronic payment tools to achieve the unity of security and convenience.

　　"In the future, digital renminbi will be further integrated with third-party payment tools. It is necessary to consider convenience in usage scenarios, make good use of existing tools and their ecology, and realize the interconnection of'money' and'wallet'; Controllable anonymity, effectively protecting personal privacy data, and meeting the public’s information security needs.” Experts said that there is a certain contradiction between convenience and security, and it is necessary to combine pilot experience and use scientific and technological means to achieve a relative balance between the two.

　　Zhu Jinyi