Chongqing- Based on the pilot areas in the early stage, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has added Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and six cities hosting the Asian Games in Zhejiang Province as pilot areas, according to the latest news from the People’s Bank of China on April 2.
A picture of Chongqing from the angle of the Jiangbeizui area. (iChongqing/ Vivian Yan)
Since 2017, the digital yuan, also known as e-CNY, has steadily promoted its research and development pilot projects.
The digital yuan pilot has been carried out in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an New Area, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian, and other places, as well as the scenario of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, basically covering the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, central, western, northeast, northwest and other regions.
At present, the digital yuan has formed a number of online and offline, replicable and popularized application models in wholesale and retail, catering, cultural tourism, government affairs payment, etc.
The scale of users, merchants, and transactions in pilot areas has grown steadily, where the market responds well.
The recent symposium on the Digital Yuan Research and Development Pilot Project held by the PBOC pointed out that, with the deepening of the pilot test, the research and development of the digital yuan will face new situations and problems in revealing convenience, optimizing inclusiveness, highlighting innovation, ensuring security, reflecting compliance, and strengthening the sustainability and other aspects, which need to be further studied and explored.
Next, all relevant parties will promote the digital yuan research and development pilot project, expanding the scope of the pilot.
Growth of financial technology
What advantages does Chongqing have to be shortlisted for the pilot?
In recent years, the continuous growth of Chongqing’s financial technology industry and the improvement of the consumer market have become a bonus for Chongqing’s shortlist.
According to the Chongqing Operations Office of the PBOC, as of the end of 2021, the scale of Chongqing’s financial assets reached 7.45 trillion yuan (about 1.1704 trillion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 11.8% and an increase of 78.3% over 2015.
Additionally, the proportion of the added value of the financial industry in the regional GDP increased from 5.53% in 2015 to 8.82%, and the overall financial strength is at the forefront of the central and western regions.
The total number of financial institutions in Chongqing reaches 1,893, among which the number of banks and insurance corporate financial institutions ranks first in the western region.
At the same time, Chongqing accelerates the layout of the financial technology industry, builds a group of interdisciplinary financial technology research bases that follow the international frontier, and increases the application of technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and cloud transactions in the financial field, attracting more financial technology companies with underlying technologies to gather.
Overall, the continuous gathering of financial institutions and the increased financial ecology have laid an industrial foundation for the digital yuan pilot.
The aerial view of Jiangbeizui central business district. (iChongqing file photo)
(Wang Lu, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)