Beijing: Subway accepts digital yuan | Cointelegraph

“China continues to expand the scope of its digital central bank currency (CBDC). Now you can pay for transport services with the digital yuan for the first time.

According to an official announcement on Wednesday, the Beijing subway launched a pilot program in which passengers can pay for the use of 24 subway lines and four subway stations with the digital yuan (e-CNY for short).

The new service is only available to customers with a bank account at the Chinese industrial and commercial bank. The big bank is involved in China’s CBDC testing. “You need to download a mobile app that is linked to your bank account to use the service,” said a spokesman for the Beijing Railway Network.”

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Hong Kong launches pilot program with digital yuan | Crypto Valley Journal

“Hong Kong’s finance minister firmly spoke of the need for digital transformation and confirmed that the region will conduct technical tests on China’s digital central bank currency (CBDC) in the form of a digital yuan in 2022.

Hong Kong Finance Minister Paul Chan Mo-po said in an essay posted on the ministry’s website on June 27 that the organization would begin technical testing of the digital yuan. Guided by the idea of “keeping up with the times”, Mo-po began his essay by saying that he was aware of how enthusiastically the Chinese public used consumer vouchers and discounts with e-wallets. This motivated him to reflect on the impact of the digital yuan, which he believes will increase the public’s interest in digital systems, as mentioned earlier.“”

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China: First blockchain payment of wages in digital yuan | Cointelegraph

“China is making progress in testing its central bank digital currency (CBDC) and introducing blockchain payments for the first time to get your salary in digital yuan.

According to the official website of the Xiong’an New Area, the Chinese central bank PBoC has paid out wages on-chain in digital yuan for the first time.

On Saturday, Xiong’an authorities said the pilot project was led by the Shijiazhuang-based PBoC branch and supported by the Bank of China Hebei in Xiong’an and the National Development and Reform Commission.”

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China’s Much-Hyped Digital Yuan Fails to Impress Early Users | Bloomberg

“As China moves closer to rolling out the world’s first major sovereign digital currency, speculation over the global implications has reached a fever pitch.

Historian Niall Ferguson is calling the digital yuan a “potentially fatal challenge” to decades of American financial hegemony. Franklin Templeton’s Michael Hasenstab says it could undermine the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. Joe Biden’s White House is studying the potential threat to U.S. interests.

Yet talk to people who’ve actually used the digital yuan in China, and you’re more likely to get a different response: shrugs of indifference.

In Shenzhen, the high-tech metropolis that just extended China’s largest digital yuan trial, participants interviewed by Bloomberg showed little interest in switching from mobile payment systems run by Ant Group Co. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. that have already replaced cash in much of the country. Some balked at the possibility a digital yuan might give authorities easier access to real-time data on their financial lives.”

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Switzerland and China to deepen finance fies | Finews

“Despite the increasing discord between China and the U.S., Switzerland wants to further deepen its cooperation in financial matters with the Far East nation.

Swiss Finance Minister Ueli Maurer exchanged views with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He at a virtual ministerial meeting (yesterday) Wednesday, according to a statement from the Federal Department of Finance (FDF). The two politicians each had a high-ranking delegation at their side.

Maurer and Liu He thus developed perspectives on deepening bilateral relations in the areas of stock market trading, sustainable financial services, asset management, and digital central bank money. The central banks of both countries are known to be working on projects for digital central bank money, although the respective approach differs greatly in terms of the user base.”

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China’s sovereign digital currency plans must be globally compatible to internationalise the yuan, analysts say | SCMP

“The ‘interoperability’ of the digital yuan with international payment systems and other central bank digital currencies will determine its use abroad.
There is a sense of urgency to promote greater use of the yuan to help China offset threat of worst-case US sanctions that could cut it off from dollar payment system.”

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Alibaba-backed AI startup SenseTime to help China handle digital Yuan | Cointelegraph

“As China is moving forward with blockchain projects amid the COVID-19 crisis, the government has tapped another tech partnership to continue the development of China’s digital yuan.

Domestic artificial intelligence (AI) startup SenseTime has partnered with the People’s Bank of China’s (PBoC) Digital Currency Research Institute to provide its AI expertise amid the reported trials of the central bank’s digital currency (CBDC).”

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Meet Red Date, the little-known tech firm behind China’s big blockchain vision | coindesk

““Initially I thought blockchain, especially distributed ledger technology [DLT], had no commercial value because it was too expensive,” said Yifan He, CEO of Beijing Red Date Technology. “Then I realized we can actually build a multi-framework platform to reduce the cost for everyone.”

That realization is a core idea of the Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), a government-supported initiative scheduled to open for global commercial use Saturday. As the only one of the three original founding companies with a specialized software background, Red Date initiated the project and has been spearheading the network’s technical design.

“I think nobody has ever heard of it. But actually, in many ways, Red Date Technology plays a critical role in the development of BSN because they are the one who architected the BSN,“ said Michael Sung, a professor at Fudan University’s Fanhai International School of Finance. “They are the one who actually created the technology strategy which went up to the [National] Development and Reform Commission. They made that happen.””

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China rolls out pilot test of digital currency | WSJ

“Milestone for world’s biggest central banks in path toward launching electronic payment system. China’s central bank has introduced a homegrown digital currency across four cities as part of a pilot program, marking a milestone on the path toward the first electronic payment system by a major central bank.”

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China starts trial of digital currency in four cities | Caixin

“China’s central bank confirmed that some state-owned banks are conducting internal tests of a digital currency in four cities and hypothetical use for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.”

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These Chinese blockchain platforms are launching soon, here is why | Forbes

“Just a few months since China’s president Xi Jinping announced blockchain as one of the country’s technological priorities and advocated to “seize the opportunity”, there has been a lot of progress on the main blockchain initiatives and most of them will be in production very soon.

The ultimate goal is to enable and establish the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) and large Chinese enterprises like Tencent, Huawei, Baidu and Ant Financial as the world leaders in new-breed payments infrastructure with unique features, to undermine the significance of the U.S. dollar as a global trade currency with the launch of Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) and to establish Chinese blockchain technical standards which will help adopt and scale the technology faster.”

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China’s digital currency to start pilots | Ledger Insights

“China’s much anticipated Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will start pilot testing this month, according to local outlet Caijing. The first firms involved are the four major state-owned banks, the three big telecoms companies and Huawei, which recently signed a cloud deal with the People’s Bank of China.

According to Fan Yifei, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the currency has completed its top-level design, formulation, functional research and testing. The next step is to launch pilots, which are planned for Shenzhen and Suzhou.

The currency is referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). That’s in part because it is a two-tier currency, where the first part involves the commercial banks converting some of their central bank deposits into digital currency. And the banks then distribute this digital currency to consumers. The process is intended to mirror the way physical cash is distributed.

The four state-owned banks involved are the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of China. And the three telecoms companies are China Telecom, China Mobile, and China Unicom.”

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