Shenzhen to distribute ‘red envelopes’ as part of digital yuan testing

The authorities of the Chinese city of Shenzhen will conduct another test of the digital yuan (e-CNY). Local media report this.

\n\n

‘Red envelopes’ will be distributed through a lottery. The total amount will be 30 million yuan ($4.5 million).

\n\n

According to the publication, as part of the testing the Shenzhen Municipal Commercial Bureau is cooperating with several financial institutions, including the Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, and ICBC.

\n\n

In October 2020, the first massive test of the e-CNY took place in Shenzhen. During the second experiment, residents completed almost 140,000 transactions totaling 18.22 million yuan (~$2.8 million). In January 2021, the third phase of testing began.

\n\n

The distribution experiment of 100,000 ‘red envelopes’ also took place in Suzhou. Beijing and Shanghai announced plans to support the testing of the e-CNY.

\n\n

In February 2021, the Agricultural Bank of China\’s branch in the ‘megacity of the future’ Xiong\’an in Hebei province developed a hardware wallet for the digital yuan.

\n\n

In July, the authorities of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, tested the digital yuan with programmable use cases.

\n\n

Earlier, Meituan allowed merchants among its partners to accept e-CNY. The testing also involved the communication system WeChat and its affiliated WeBank.

\n\n

In April 2022, former PBoC governor Zhou Xiaochuan stated that the digital yuan is intended for the public and merchants, not to replace SWIFT or turn currencies into weapons.

\n\n

Subscribe to ForkLog’s channel on YouTube!