The Guangdong province of Guangzhou has emerged as one of the leading centres for trial deployment of the Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC), commonly referred to as the digital renminbi.
As of 15 June seven trial financial institutions in the Guangzhou area had opened around 2.025 million personal digital renminbi wallets for customers, as well as approximately 195,000 public wallets.
These wallets had processed around 3.363 million transactions with a combined value of approximately 490 million yuan. Over 85,000 sites in Guangzhou currently support the use of the digital renminbi for payments purposes.
Observers say the digital renminbi has seen strong enthusiasm from users in Guangzhou due to reduced payments cost.
“With the digital renminbi you no longer need to pay processing fees to banks,” said one local member of the banking sector to state-owned media.
“These fees can be around 4% offline, or around 6% online. If you use the digital renminbi, the cost is zero.
“in future, anything that cash can do, the digital renminbi will also be capable of doing.”
