China’s Commerce Ministry announced major expansion of the nation’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) trials to Bejing and other regions.
The testing will also include the northern provinces of Tianjin and Hebei and eastern region of Yangtze River Delta. The trials will cover the country’s wealthiest regions and some poorer central and western regions that meet unknown criteria.
Last week it became known that the central bank-led digital yuan pilot program will also include the Greater Bay Area (GBA) that consists of nice cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau.
The expanded pilot program does not have set time yet but policy framework should be complete by the end of 2020.
The development of the digital currency electronic payment (DCEP) in China began in 2014, much before other global monetary regulators.
China’s initial real-world trial of its CBDC was scheduled for Shenzhen in the end of last year with the support of People’s Bank of China, four major banks and key economic participants including China Telecom to trail the digital currency payments.
Banque de France recently announced a list partners including Soc Gen, HSBC and six others with which it will build a central bank digital currency. The bank called for applications to experiment the use of central bank digital currency for interbank settlements.
