Digital currency to be tested in Xiongan; trial run involves restaurants
The project of China’s official digital currency, dubbed as DC/ EP, will be tested in the Xiongan New Area, North China’s Hebei Province, with a trial run in local catering and retail industries including US coffee chain Starbucks, fast food chain McDonald’s and the Qingfeng Baozi (stuffed bun) restaurant chain, the Global Times has learned Thursday.
According to a document seen by the Global Times, local authorities in Xiongan new area held a roadshow for the DC/EP project on Wednesday.
Participants include the Xiongan development and reform bureau, working teams piloting DC/EP from a subsidiary of the People’s Bank of China (PBC), China’s central bank, in Hebei provincial capital city of Shijiazhuang, employees from the Xiongan branches of four major commercial banks as well as representatives from Tencent and Alipay, according to media reports.
Other participants include enterprises such as Starbucks, McDonald’s, Subway Restaurant, Qinfeng Baozi, Oscar Cinema, JD unmanned supermarkets, UnionPay unmanned supermarkets, and Zhonghai SPV Group, a consortium of major state-owned construction enterprises that undertake key projects in Xiongan.
As an innovation-driven city, Xiongan is accelerating its pace of overall digitalization in local governance, business operations and people’s daily life, Chen Bo, director of the Finance Research Center at the Institute of Finance and Economics under the Central University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times.
The Global Times reported earlier that in addition to Xiongan, three other cities – Shenzhen in South China’s Guangdong Province, Suzhou in East China’s Jiangsu Province, and Chengdu in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province – will also test the central bank-backed digital currency.
“The pilot program will test the new fintech, and, it needs some time to check its effect before it will be introduced to other cities,” Chen noted.
China has recently been accelerating its pace of digital currency implementation despite the PBC advocating caution, Chen noted, adding that the digital currency technology is maturing.
The major force behind the sudden advancement is growing economic slowdown pressure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has largely impaired economic growth, particularly the offline retail and service sectors.