The Jiangsu province city of Suzhou is teaming up with e-commerce giant JD.com to stage the second large-scale lottery in the region for the issuance of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The Suzhou municipal government has announced that it will work with JD.com to hold the lottery on 5 February, with the results to be announced the following week on 10 February.
The lottery will see the issuance of 150,000 “red packets” (the traditional Chinese gift-giving envelope) each containing 200 yuan in digital renminbi to residents of the city, for a total prize sum of 30 million yuan.
Applicants for the digital renminbi prizes must be registered residents of the Suzhou municipal area or have made social welfare payments in the city for at least the past three years, and can enter the lottery by means of a special app.
Winners must use the digital renminbi they’re awarded during the period from 10 February to 26 February, or else forfeit their cash prizes.
The digital renminbi prizes can be used to make purchases at designated brick-and-mortar stores in the city of Suzhou, as well as a number of JD.com’s online e-commerce platforms.
All six of China’s big state-owned banks – including Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank, ICBC and Postal Savings Bank of China, will provide digital wallets that lottery winners can use to claim their awards.
The lottery arrives just after the Sichuan province of Chengdu held a 50 million yuan lottery on 27 January, which is thus far the biggest event of its kind to be held in China.
China has held several lotteries for the issuance of the digital renminbi to local consumers, including a 10 million yuan lottery in Shenzhen’s Luohu district on the weekend of 10 – 11 October, a 20 million yuan lottery in Suzhou on 12 December to coincide with China’s Double 12 E-commerce Festival, and another 20 million yuan lottery in Shenzhen’s Futian district.
All of these lottery events involved the issuance of 200 yuan in CBDC to individual winners via digital renminbi apps, which could subsequently be used for consumption purposes within a set timeframe.
