Sources from within the Chinese banking system claim that China’s tech giants and big state-owned banks will be the first recipients of its proposed new statutory digital currency.
Paul Schulte, former head of China Construction Bank, said to Forbes on 27 August that the seven initial recipients of the Chinese central bank’s digital currency would include:
- Alibaba
- Tencent
- Agricultural Bank of China
- Bank of China
- China Construction Bank
- Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
- UnionPay.
Another anonymous source who claims to be working on the project itself said that the technology is already operational, and that the digital currency could be launched by as early as 11 November.
A senior official from the Chinese central bank declared earlier this month that its launch of a statutory digital currency was all but “imminent.”
Officials said that the statutory digital currency will operate under a two-tier system, which will involve PBOC first trading the currency with key financial institutions who in turn trade it with retail clients.
How will this differ from the standard yuan, which is traded digitally anyway?