Chongqing- May 19 marks one month since Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality launched the digital RMB pilot project, and the results are remarkable. The number of digital renminbi or e-CNY digital wallets already exceeds 1 million, and the number of transactions exceeds 1.5 million. The total transaction amount reached 288 million yuan (about 4.26 million U.S. dollars), covering transportation, retail supermarkets, medical services, online payment, and other fields.

Chongqing was one of a select few pilot cities to test the digital RMB app on March 31 this year, along with Tianjin, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and six cities in Zhejiang Province that hosted the Asian Games, becoming the third batch of pilot areas for the national digital RMB.

Wu Haosheng, deputy director of the Chongqing Operations Office of the People's Bank of China, introduced the digital RMB as a digital form of legal tender issued by the People's Bank of China. It is a digital retail currency issued by the central bank to the public. Its launch will meet people's daily payment needs and reduce retail payment costs.

Advantages of digital RMB

Wu introduced that digital RMB is a digital form of cash equivalent to physical RMB. It takes into account the advantages of physical RMB and electronic payment.

The People's Bank of China does not charge exchange and circulation service fees to designated operating agencies, and agencies do not charge individuals for digital RMB service fees. There is no fee for transfer and withdrawal, reducing the cost of capital used for merchants.

The digital RMB is directly transferred based on the digital RMB wallet, which is beneficial to enterprises to improve the efficiency of capital turnover.

Meanwhile, due to the anonymity and traceability of digital RMB, The digital RMB could protect consumers' privacy and financial security, avoid telecom fraud and counterfeit currency hazards, and ensure the safety of payment transactions as much as possible.

Digital RMB application scenarios

According to Wu, the entire region of Chongqing is a pilot area for digital RMB. Social security, taxation, provident funds, property fees, water and electricity, postal service, and other fields will provide public digital RMB payment channels. Citizens can use digital RMB payment while traveling in the city to accomplish smart travel.

Chongqing will build a consumer ecosystem that fully accepts digital RMB in retailers. People could use digital RMB to pay for medical services. At the same time, the cultural tourism industry will all accept digital RMB payments.

To build an international consumption center city, Chongqing will innovate to create a digital RMB featured business district, cultural tourism consumption activity brands, and payment scenarios for exhibitions and sports events.

Under the China-Singapore (Chongqing) Demonstration Initiative on Strategic Connectivity (CCI), business travel, talent training, medical care, and shopping will welcome the digital RMB. In the future, the digital RMB will be applied to the trade and exchanges between western China and Southeast Asian countries to improve cross-border settlement efficiency.

Chongqing will create a batch of digital RMB featured business districts. Forty-five urban business districts such as Jiefangbei, Guanyinqiao, and Yangjiaping will introduce various application scenarios to create consumption scenarios with Bayu characteristics to promote digital RMB applications.

Chongqing will also take advantage of crucial exhibition activities such as the Western China International Fair for Investment and Trade and themed consumption promotion activities such as the Nightless Chongqing Life Festival to organize digital RMB-themed consumption activities.