China’s State-Run Banks Reportedly Testing Wallet for Digital Yuan

A group of state-run commercial banks in China are reportedly conducting a large-scale internal testing of a digital wallet designed for China’s national digital currency, the digital yuan.

According to an Aug. 5 report by Reuters, the banks are testing the wallet application to transfer money and make payments in China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC. As reported, the development was initially revealed to China’s state-backed newspaper the 21st Century Business Herald by several employees at involved state banks in cities including Shenzhen.

The new development represents another major milestone in China’s progress in adopting the digital yuan and comes in line with a key goal set by China’s central bank, the People’s Bank of China. On Aug. 3, the PBoC reportedly said that China should actively promote the development of the digital yuan as part of its top priorities for the second half of 2020.

While China has emerged as one of the most strict countries in terms of crypto regulation, it is leading the world in regard to the development of a national digital currency. China’s central bank has been steadily progressing with its CBDC, which it refers to as digital currency electronic payment. In April, China successfully piloted the project in four cities including Shenzhen, Chengdu, Suzhou and Xiongan.

On Aug. 4, Cointelegraph reported that the PBoC is purportedly planning to use the digital yuan to target the dominance of tech giants like Alibaba and Tencent in the digital payments sector. In late July, Reuters reported that the Central Bank formally recommended that the State Council’s antitrust committee launch a probe into the activities of digital payments titans Alipay and WeChat Pay.