Bloomberg: Tencent- and Ant Group-backed banks to test the digital yuan

Two Chinese banks will test the digital yuan with the support of Tencent and Ant Group. Bloomberg reports this.

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According to the source, WeBank and MYbank will be the first among private financial institutions to offer customers yuan-denominated digital wallets for transfers and payments. Previously, the experiment was conducted by four state-owned banks in China.

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In October, the authorities of Shenzhen were the first to distribute the national digital currency (DCEP) among the population. On December 12 in Suzhou distributed “red envelopes” totaling about $1.5 million.

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In January in Shenzhen, they repeated a mass experiment in using the DCEP. Residents received 20 million digital yuan worth about $3.1 million.

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The testing of the digital yuan also took place in Chengdu, where they distributed 30 million digital yuan (about $5 million). Beijing and Shanghai announced plans to back the DCEP experiment.

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On February 10, the authorities of Suzhou distributed 150,000 “red envelopes” with digital yuan totaling about $5 million. Lottery winners will be able to spend the funds until February 26.

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As reported, the People\’s Bank of China and Hong Kong intend to deploy digital yuan in cross-border payments.

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