China Construction Bank Opens 7.23 Million Personal Digital Renminbi Wallets for Clients

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One of China’s big state-owned banks says it has provided over 7 million personal digital renminbi wallets to clients since the official commencement of trials for the central bank digital currency in early 2020.

China Construction Bank (CCB) says it has opened 7.23 million personal digital renminbi wallets for customers as of the end of the first half of 2021, as well as 1.19 million public wallets (对公钱包).

The wallets have been used for more than 28.45 million transactions worth around 18.9 billion yuan in total, covering areas including living expenditures, food and beverage services, transit, consumer purchase and government administrative services.

CCB vice-president Zhang Min (张敏) said that the lender first began to take part in research and development work for the digital renminbi at the end of 2017, under the “unified organization and guidance” of the Chinese central bank.

Zhang said that CCB mainly conducted work in three areas:

  1. Research and development of digital renminbi systems and wallet systems on the CCB end.
  2. Commencing trial and testing work for ten areas including Shenzhen, Suzhou and Xiong’an, in accordance with the principles of stability, security, controllability, innovation and practicality.
  3. Actively exploring applications such as smart contracts, dual-offline transactions and hard wallets, to provide a more secure and inclusive retail payments environment and payments services for the general public.