From sharing bicycles to consuming "red envelopes", the application scenarios of digital renminbi continue to expand
Author: Duan Siyu
The pilot application of digital renminbi is becoming more and more mature.
"I rode a shared bicycle a few days ago and paid with a digital RMB red envelope. I felt like I got a little wool." "I just participated in a bank event and received a 15-yuan digital RMB consumption coupon. There are quite a few places to use it. "Recently, a number of consumers told Yicai reporter that digital renminbi is becoming more and more common in everyone's daily life.
Not only on the personal side, but also on the corporate side, the reporter noticed that the digital renminbi has also achieved breakthroughs in various business scenarios.
For example, recently, Suzhou, Chengdu, Fujian, etc. have applied digital renminbi to scenarios such as corporate receipts, provident fund deposits, and land auctions to help accelerate the development of the digital economy.
"So far, the pilot of digital renminbi on the application side has been very successful, from buying and selling payment in general stores to smart contracts, provident fund deposits, land auctions, etc., and the results are more outstanding." Liu Xiaochun, vice president of Shanghai New Finance Research Institute Yicaijing said that in general, the pilot application of digital renminbi has entered a relatively mature stage, and the next thing to think about is the formulation of the digital renminbi issuance system and the operation mode of operating agencies.
my country is a pioneer in legal digital currency research.
Since its official launch at the end of 2019, 15 provinces (municipalities) have carried out digital RMB pilot work.
According to the latest data from the Central Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute, as of August 31 this year, the pilot areas in 15 provinces (cities) had accumulated 360 million transactions with an amount of 100.04 billion yuan, and the number of merchant stores supporting digital renminbi exceeded 5.6 million. .
The consensus in the industry is that the application of digital renminbi will accelerate in the future.
Pilot scenarios are becoming more and more abundant
Since the launch of the pilot work, digital RMB has formed a large number of application models covering online and offline, which can be replicated and promoted in the fields of wholesale and retail, catering, culture and tourism, education and medical care, and public services.
Especially since the beginning of this year, the governments of the pilot regions have carried out nearly 30 digital RMB consumption red envelope activities on themes such as "promoting consumption", "fighting the epidemic" and "low-carbon travel". It will vigorously promote the replenishment of social consumption and the release of potential.
Today, with the recovery of the real economy, the application of digital renminbi in many places has ushered in many breakthroughs.
The reporter learned that recently, Chengdu launched the first enterprise digital RMB remittance to provident fund business, adding a new application scenario for the digital RMB people's livelihood service field.
It is reported that the depositor only needs to open a digital wallet to complete the deposit of the housing provident fund through digital RMB payment, without approval, without signing an agreement, without using a third-party payment tool, and the payment will be credited to the account. The whole process is simple and efficient.
In addition to Chengdu, Guangzhou, Suzhou, Shenzhen and other places have also implemented this function.
In Suzhou, Suzhou Bank recently assisted a local pharmaceutical chain Co., Ltd. to realize the digital RMB parent-child wallet acquiring function, making it the first pharmaceutical sales enterprise in China to use the digital RMB parent-child wallet for the acquiring business.
According to reports, the traditional acquiring model has the problems of slow fund arrival and high handling fee rate, which not only reduces the operating income of enterprises, but also reduces the efficiency of capital turnover.
The digital RMB parent-child wallet has the characteristics of rapid fund arrival and no handling fee. For enterprises, it can greatly reduce settlement costs and improve operational efficiency.
In Fujian, after bidding for a plot in Mawei District, Fuzhou, an investment company in Fuzhou paid the first phase of the land auction through a public digital RMB wallet opened in Kuai'an Sub-branch of ICBC Fuzhou Free Trade Zone Branch.
As a result, the first digital RMB land auction in Fujian Province was paid and landed.
This move not only realizes the innovation of land auction payment methods, meets the diversified payment needs of enterprises, but also further promotes the expansion of the application scenarios of digital renminbi from the commercial side to the government side, and realizes the digital renminbi micro-payment to large-amount payment. extension of the field.
In Shanghai, CCB Shanghai Branch teamed up with Shanghai Qingpu District Human Resources and Social Security Bureau to distribute more than 3 million yuan of corporate talent subsidies in the form of digital RMB for the first time through the CCB counter agency system.
The distribution of the talent subsidy is an exploration of implementing the digital governance of the city and applying the digital renminbi to pay for the talent subsidy, expanding the business scope of the digital renminbi.
It can be seen that the coverage of digital renminbi is getting wider and wider, and its unique attributes not only improve the convenience of payment, but also enhance the security of funds.
"Currently, both public and private scenarios are accelerating. In terms of pilot scenarios, they are more suitable for the characteristics of digital renminbi, and they have released a signal of normalized application, which has reference significance for subsequent pilots." Broadcom Consulting Financial Industry Senior analyst Wang Pengbo analyzed.
Great potential for both public and private
As far as the development of future application scenarios of digital renminbi is concerned, many people in the industry believe that it will be promising for both the public and private sectors.
"Considering the characteristics of the digital renminbi, it can be applied to scenarios of banknote applications as well as scenarios beyond the application scope of banknotes." Liu Xiaochun told reporters.
Xue Hongyan, deputy dean of Xingtu Financial Research Institute, also told Yicai that digital renminbi has traceability characteristics and is more suitable for promotion and application in scenarios with high requirements for capital transparency; at the same time, digital renminbi is positioned as a cash attribute and can be peer-to-peer. Payment is not restricted by bank accounts, and is more suitable for the precise distribution of various types of funds such as consumption subsidies led by the government, which is convenient for policy implementation and effect monitoring.
"With the precision of epidemic prevention and control, offline consumption scenarios are gradually opening up. It is expected that all parts of the country will enter the peak period of the implementation of consumption promotion policies, and the digital renminbi is expected to play a greater role in it." Xue Hongyan analyzed.
In terms of privacy protection, according to reports, the digital renminbi follows the principle of "minimum and necessary" when collecting personal information, and the amount of information collected is less than existing electronic payment tools.
The Central Bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute also made it clear when talking about the development of digital renminbi business that it will take into account customer privacy protection and security compliance, and follow the principle of “small amounts of anonymity and large amounts of legal traceability” to fully protect the public’s reasonable personal information protection need.
Promote the deep integration and mutual promotion of corporate business and personal business.
The main measures include: supporting the provision of services such as facilitation of fund management, salary payment, purchase, sale and storage for small and medium-sized enterprises; supporting the use of the advantages of digital renminbi in public areas such as finance, taxation, and government affairs, and providing advanced digital and intelligent governance for the government. payment services; realize the interconnection between the digital renminbi system and traditional electronic payment tools, so that consumers can “scan with one code”, and merchants try to support various payment tools without increasing costs; continue to promote the accessibility and adaptability of digital renminbi Aging capacity building, improvement of barrier-free product specifications and standard systems, etc.
In order to further focus on subdivision scenarios, Xue Hongyan told reporters that at this stage, digital RMB accounts do not pay interest, and it is difficult to effectively replace mature tools such as credit cards and monetary fund-based balance payments in general payment scenarios; focusing on the future, With the gradual rise of the Internet of Things, web3.0, Metaverse, etc., digital RMB is expected to usher in its own explosive application scenarios in the B-side industry chain and C-side Internet of Things and other fields, and the penetration rate will increase rapidly at a certain point.
He explained that the B-end mainly refers to the payment of funds in the closed loop of the industrial chain. By introducing digital RMB, the automation of capital payment can be improved and the digital transformation of the industrial chain can be coordinated; the C-end mainly refers to some small and high-frequency payment fields. For example, the automatic payment of high-speed tolls, the automatic payment of intelligent charging piles, etc., although it is not mature at present, but there is room for imagination.
Wang Pengbo also emphasized the more possibilities of digital renminbi in B-side applications.
"From the perspective of the scene, the application of the B-side is more optimistic at present, especially after the smart contract technology is loaded, the digital renminbi will be suitable for scenarios involving fund custody, collection and transfer that require automatic credit support, which will reduce costs and increase. effective effect.”
Institutional level still needs to be improved
As the pilot application becomes more and more mature, the official issuance of digital renminbi is highly anticipated.
However, before that, there are still many problems to be solved, especially the establishment and improvement of relevant laws and regulatory systems, and the improvement of relevant technical standards. It is expected that a series of regulations will be issued at the regulatory level in the future.
The Central Bank Digital Currency Research Institute stated that it will adhere to the rule of law and standardized construction, and consolidate the legal and regulatory foundation for the development of the digital renminbi.
Further improve the relevant laws and regulations and industry supporting policies of digital renminbi, consolidate the legal foundation of digital renminbi, and consolidate the legal compensation status of digital renminbi.
Give full play to the role of financial infrastructure, strengthen the overall coordination of digital RMB business, risk control, technology, security, etc., and firmly maintain the bottom line of safe operation.
"At present, the work of digital renminbi has been planned from point to point, such as the construction of smart contract platforms, the establishment of information isolation and punishment mechanisms, and a series of arrangements from the top-level system and legislative level. It is expected that there will be a number of digital renminbi in the future. Relevant regulations and regulations have been promulgated." Wang Pengbo said.
Liu Xiaochun said that the digital renminbi pilot has achieved remarkable results in both private and public scenarios. In the next stage, the focus of work may turn to the establishment of the digital renminbi issuance system, such as how to produce digital renminbi, how the central bank issues externally, and how to social circulation, etc.
"In addition, it is necessary to balance the relationship between operating agencies and other commercial banks." Liu Xiaochun further emphasized that different positioning of the relationship between the two may have different effects.
In addition, if the system is not properly designed, it will also lead to unfair competition between operating institutions and non-operating institutions. It is recommended to set up special rules and regulations for operating institutions.
In addition, some industry insiders told reporters that the current digital renminbi accounting rules issued by various banks are not uniform, and further clarification is needed in the future.