数字人民币应用再试水
中国新闻周刊记者/陈惟杉
发于2022.1.24总第1030期《中国新闻周刊》
2022年1月4日，数字人民币(试点版)App上架安卓、苹果应用商店，这不是公众第一次见到这款App。
2020年10月，数字人民币曾在深圳试点消费券场景，在深圳的个人当时有机会抽签获得金额200元的数字人民币红包，共计5万个，红包的发放与领取正是通过数字人民币App，中签者可以在罗湖区完成数字人民币系统改造的3389家商户无门槛消费。这是数字人民币这一略显抽象的概念第一次具象地呈现于公众面前。
经过2020年深圳“千万元红包”试点，公众对于数字人民币的概念不再陌生，但是仍然难以想象它可能带来的改变，特别是在移动支付已然足够发达的中国。作为主要经济体中最早启动的央行数字货币项目，App的上线对于数字人民币无疑具有标志性意义，但其尚无法囊括数字人民币真正的野心。
绕开了银行账户
2022年年初，数字人民币开始在更广阔的地域、人群与应用场景下试水。
试点中，数字人民币指定运营机构抽选的试点地区白名单用户可注册数字人民币(试点版)App，试点地区扩展到深圳、苏州、雄安、成都、上海、海南、长沙、西安、青岛、大连及冬奥会场景(北京、张家口)。同时，“运营机构”也有所扩容，相比于2020年的四大国有银行(工、农、中、建)，变为六大国有银行(中、农、工、建、交、邮储)，外加股份制银行招商银行，以及微众银行、网商银行两家民营银行，白名单用户可以开通这些商业银行的数字人民币钱包。
从一开始便参与研发的腾讯、阿里系银行进入运营机构，其所属的运营机构阵营又承担怎样的角色？数字人民币采用双层运营体系，由央行与指定的商业银行这两层构成，央行向商业银行批发数字货币，再由作为运营机构的商业银行面向公众提供数字人民币兑换流通服务。
复旦大学中国研究院副研究员刘典告诉《中国新闻周刊》，随着数字人民币的推广，未来运营机构扮演的角色并非只是提供兑换服务，而是围绕数字人民币完善支付场景生态。“比如支付宝、微信支付将活期存款转变为电子货币，但是其角色不止于此，更关键在于拓展了广阔的应用场景”。
但提供兑换服务，这是当下用户对于运营机构作用最直观的体会。有用户甚至产生疑问，在使用数字人民币App时，需要将银行账户的钱兑换为数字人民币，充入“钱包”，为什么不直接使用银行账户支付？
“‘钱包’是不准确的说法，其实指个人数字人民币账户系统，目前在终端上的体现便是数字人民币App，而数字人民币账户与银行账户是分开的两套系统。现在人们认为数字人民币账户余额是由银行账户余额‘兑换’而来，与支付宝、微信支付账户余额逻辑类似，似乎仍绕不开银行账户，但是未来数字人民币会有其独立来源。政府、企业都可能成为个人数字人民币的来源，如果企业的员工都有数字人民币账户，企业发放工资时可以不经过任何银行账户，直接发放到个人数字人民币账户。”浙江现代数字金融科技研究院理事长周子衡向《中国新闻周刊》解释。
周子衡表示，如果一个人没有银行账户，那他依然能使用数字人民币。数字人民币与银行账户松耦合，便可以在技术上实现“小额匿名”，达成与使用现金支付一样的匿名效果。
央行数字货币研究所所长穆长春曾解释说，目前的支付工具，无论是银行卡还是微信、支付宝，都是与银行账户体系绑定的，银行开户是实名制，无法满足匿名诉求。数字人民币钱包采用了分级分类的设计，根据KYC(Know Your Customer，了解消费者)程度的不同开立不同级别的数字钱包，满足公众不同支付需求。其中KYC强度最弱的钱包为匿名钱包，仅用手机号就可以开立，当然这类钱包的余额和每日交易限额也最低，只能满足日常小额支付需求。
数字人民币App显示，数字人民币钱包根据客户身份识别强度进行分类管理，分为四种钱包类型，其中四类钱包便是非实名钱包，办理条件仅需手机号即可，但设有1万元的余额上限、2000元的单笔支付限额上限、5000元的日累计支付限额上限，以及5万元的年累计支付限额上限。
对于手机号实名制，因此仍无法实现匿名的疑虑，穆长春解释称，尽管电信运营商也参与了数字人民币的研发，但根据有关法律规定，电信运营商不得将用户信息披露给央行等第三方。因此，用手机号开立的数字人民币钱包对于央行和各运营机构来说，是完全匿名的。
但是办理三类、二类、一类钱包，就需要“有效身份证件”“本人银行账户”“本人银行账户运营机构现场面签”等条件。
穆长春曾表示，数字人民币如果匿名程度过高，也可能被犯罪分子盯上，变成黄赌毒等非法交易的工具。央行数字货币的匿名探索不能违反反洗钱、反恐怖融资及反逃税等监管规定。完全匿名从来不是各国央行数字货币的考虑，只有在符合“三反”等监管要求前提下的有限匿名才是国际共识。
数字人民币会取代谁？
在数字人民币App上，显示已有美团、饿了么、滴滴出行等零售交易类，网上国网、中石化App等生活缴费类，以及党费交纳等政务服务类场景，共42个平台试点使用数字人民币。
其实从账户松耦合、可控匿名等特征不难看出，数字人民币与实物现金在使用上具有相似的特征。但随着数字人民币的推广，其与现有支付方式，特别是与第三方支付工具之间的关系成为外界关注的话题。
2021年5月，在“2021 清华五道口全球金融论坛”上，央行前行长周小川曾澄清外界对于数字人民币存在的误解，其中之一便是“人民银行推动的DC/EP(数字人民币)是想取代第三方支付的角色”。
他解释说，这是一种妄议，DC/EP是一种双层系统，整个研发队伍由人民银行组织，由主要商业银行、电信运营商和第三方支付机构共同参与研发。大家都是在一条船上，并不是有些人说的谁会取代谁。
Liu Dian believes that the competition between digital renminbi and existing third-party payment tools is not in the same dimension.
As China's sovereign credit currency, its digitalization process can be divided into two stages: the first stage can be called "electronic currency", that is, the currency paid by electronic means, that is, in Alipay, WeChat and other third parties The second stage can be called "digital legal currency", that is, the digital renminbi that the People's Bank of China promotes research and development and pilots.
"What's the difference between the two? Digital RMB is a 'real' currency, while mobile payment is a way to get and receive money. The relationship between the two may be likened to 'water' and a 'tool for taking water' ', the nature is completely different. In other words, the digital RMB account is a native bank account, the amount in it is equivalent to cash, and this account comes with an electronic payment channel built by the central bank. The user's account in the third-party payment app is just a A virtual account used for bookkeeping, the amount in it is actually the RMB deposited in a commercial bank by a third-party institution or the user, and when a user uses a third-party payment, he must associate a bank card account." Liu Dian said that as far as personal In terms of user experience, the digital renminbi is not much different from third-party payment tools such as WeChat Pay and Alipay, but the mechanisms behind them are quite different.
According to different uses and forms of existence, currency can be divided into three categories: M0, M1, and M2. M0 refers to cash in circulation, including banknotes and coins, M1 is based on M0 plus corporate demand deposits, and M2 is in the On the basis of M1, time deposits, household savings deposits and other deposits are added.
When people use Alipay, WeChat Pay and other third-party payment tools, they need to bind bank accounts, usually using demand deposits, which belong to the M2 category, and the digital RMB is positioned to replace M0, that is, to replace physical cash such as banknotes and coins.
Mu Changchun also explained that Alipay and WeChat Pay are digital wallets. Before the birth of the digital renminbi, they carried the deposit currency of commercial banks.
After the birth of digital renminbi, the content in the wallet may increase the central bank's digital currency, and everyone can still use the original wallet for payment.
"Although there is almost no difference in payment experience, merchants and consumers can accept or reject any third-party payment tool, but digital renminbi is legal tender, not an optional financial service." Liu Dian said.
This also reflects the difference in the mechanism behind the two, but the current application scenario of the digital renminbi pilot is small retail. Some people believe that the development of mobile payment in China may cause obstacles to the promotion of digital renminbi, because mobile payment has already covered many consumption scenarios.
"It's like discussing why high-speed rail should be built when there are already planes, and even thinking that high-speed rail will suppress the development of the aviation industry, but in fact the two are developing at the same time in China." Zhou Ziheng believes that digital payment is very complex and rich in layers. Personal limited experience believes that there is no demand, which does not mean that the government, companies and other entities also have no demand. In the entire digital payment system, not meeting the payment needs of personal consumption scenarios solves all problems.
In the design of the digital currency of the central bank of various countries, an important question is whether the digital currency of the central bank is wholesale or retail.
Liu Dian believes that the digital renminbi belongs to the retail central bank digital currency and is open to the public, while the use of the wholesale central bank digital currency is more limited to public scenarios such as between the central bank and financial institutions.
"The application of digital renminbi does not mean that the existing market of third-party payment institutions will be affected, but for the new scenarios where digital renminbi may open up public and private integrated payments in the future, existing third-party payment institutions may no longer occupy a dominant position. The changes brought by digital renminbi to payment may occur more in the field of public payment in the future, and some payment scenarios can only be opened up by digital renminbi with legal compensation.”
"From the perspective of the history of currency evolution, it is generally necessary to establish a firm foothold in the retail field first, and then expand to the wholesale field. The core goal of the digital renminbi in the future is to target the wholesale and large-value fields." In Zhou Ziheng's vision, the future financial , the financial exchanges in the field of taxation can no longer go through the bank account system.
From this perspective, he believes that the final opponent of the payment ecosystem built by the digital renminbi in the future is the existing bank payment system.
“A core indicator for judging the success of digital renminbi is the balance of the digital renminbi account. At present, the process from zero to one has been completed, and a breakthrough has been achieved in structure, but the account balance is still very small. Generally speaking, it is the future of renminbi. It will be divided into two types, digital form and non-digital form. The former will replace the latter. If the balance of digital renminbi reaches a certain proportion of the balance of non-digital form of renminbi, basically the bank's payment channel will 'disarm and surrender'. Based on the existing digital payment, this process will be very fast.”
在刘典看来，这也意味着数字货币将加深对金融机构的脱媒化趋势，“金融科技带来的一大改变就是脱媒化，过去办理很多业务必须要到银行网点，也就是需要一个网络化的媒介支撑，但现在我们办理业务对于网点的需求已经越来越少”。
如何影响现有国际货币体系？
“在世界主要经济体中，数字人民币应用试点的推进速度最为迅速，而数字人民币之所以偏向零售型，是由于中国数字支付以及与之配套的金融科技应用相对成熟。”刘典认为，中国之所以选择零售型路径，也缘于中国已经积累起的应用优势，“零售型数字货币在技术环节要处理的问题更为具体，而批发型数字货币更多涉及金融机构间结算体系的改造”。
相比于2017年年末便已批准开展数字人民币体系研发的中国，其他主要经济体对央行数字货币态度的转折大多发生在2020年，这一年也被成为主权数字货币崛起之年。
2020年1月，包括欧盟、日本、加拿大等国家和地区在内的六家央行与国际清算银行一道，就央行数字货币成立联合工作组。随后，美联储也加入了这一工作组。
“欧美、日本在数字支付领域‘一脚踩空’的根源在于银行不提供货币来源，相当于不提供子弹，而非因为文化、习惯等，但是中国的银行却愿意提供支持，因此双方过去在数字支付领域形成差距的原因在于银行业的立场和态度。这又取决于银行的组织形态，中国银行业的特点是高度单一化，同质竞争激烈，翻译过来便是中国的银行业最容易出‘叛徒’，一些国有大行不愿意做的事情却有中小银行愿意尝试。”周子衡认为，除了商业银行系统是否支持数字支付，另一个重要因素便是监管的态度，中国监管的态度长期为包容审慎，之后再查缺补漏。这两方面因素决定了欧美、日本在数字支付领域的追赶颇为困难，基于此在数字货币的推广上也会与中国形成落差。
"Because the interests of banks are difficult to touch, the idea of the United States is that the banking system is plugged in with digital assets, technology is connected, and finance is not connected. It is equivalent to the bank having nothing to do with the contents of the safe deposit box, but the safe deposit box is kept by the bank, and then the safe deposit box is stored in different banks. In contrast, China's path is equivalent to directly doing 'opening surgery', changing the currency structure, and establishing two sets of account systems." Zhou Ziheng likened it to China's laser surgery to correct myopia, and the United States to wear glasses. .
This gap also makes some people hope that the digital renminbi will boost the internationalization of the renminbi and even replace the international dominance of the US dollar.
In this regard, Zhou Xiaochuan said in May last year that the development of digital renminbi is mainly based on the modernization of the domestic payment system, keeping up with the pace of the digital economy and the Internet era, improving efficiency and reducing costs, especially for retail payment systems.
The original design purpose and direction of efforts did not intend to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and an international payment currency.
However, as central banks put digital currencies on the agenda, it will definitely have an impact on the existing international monetary system.
"The impact of the central bank's digital currency on the existing international monetary system will not happen in the near future, and it is more of a long-term future. At present, the balance of the central bank's digital currency account is still difficult to have an impact, just like a magnifying glass cannot light a house, but in the future, the world will It is very doubtful that it will not be dominated by sovereign currencies as it is now.” Zhou Ziheng believes that some countries may not be able to issue central bank digital currencies in the future, and may therefore have to give up currency sovereignty.
"If the world enters a new pattern of competition for digital fiat currency, the sovereign currencies of some countries may further exist in name only. In fact, some economies now show the characteristics of high dollarization. In the era of digital currency, the currency sovereignty of these countries that have fallen by the wayside may become It is further resolved and attached to the regional mainstream central bank digital currency." Liu Dian believes that at the same time, the status of the US dollar will show a relative downward trend, and the future international currency pattern may evolve into "multi-centralization". With the trend of anti-globalization, The rise of regional economic and trade organizations may be accompanied by a corresponding digital currency area.
"China News Weekly" Issue 4, 2022
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