China has just held a third lottery for the issuance of digital renminbi to Chinese consumers that greatly expands the scope of applicable usage compared to previous events.
The lottery held in the Shenzhen district of Futian on 4 January saw the issuance of 100,000 “red packets” each containing 200 yuan in digital renminbi to event winners, for a total sum of 20 million yuan.
The Futian lottery follows the staging of similar digital renminbi lotteries last year, including a 10 million yuan lottery in Shenzhen’s Luohu district on the weekend of 10 – 11 October, and a 20 million yuan lottery in Suzhou on 12 December to coincide with China’s Double 12 E-commerce Festival.
Futian authorities said that the digital renminbi issued during the lottery could be used at over 10,000 participating vendors including restaurants, pet stores, movie theatres, book stores, educational facilities, healthcare facilities and supermarkets.
The lottery also saw the participation of all six of China’s big state-owned banks, including Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Bank of China (BOC), Bank of Communications (BOCOM), China Construction Bank (CCB), the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC).
