$160 Million In Digital Yuan Have Been Transferred By PBOC

$160 million of the digital yuan have been transferred by the People’s Bank of China as a part of the CBDC pilot according to the deputy governor of the bank, as we are reading more in our cryptonews today.

The People’s Bank of China settled over there million payments or $160 million in digital yuan according to the deputy governor Fan Yi Fei. During the pilot, the bank examined more than 6700 use cases for the central bank digital currency, and about 5000 payments in digital yuan granted to medial workers that were fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The People’s Bank of China processed over 3 million transactions that were worth about $162 million in digital yuan as a part of the DCEP, the pilot for a central bank digital currency.

Speaking during the Sibos 2020 virtual conference, the PBOC deputy governor Fan Yi Fei noted that:

 “An aggregate of 113,300 personal digital wallets and 8,859 corporate digital wallets have been opened […] up until late August.”

Join Fan Yi Fei, Deputy Governor, People's Bank of China, for the first of this year's Views from the Top – 15:30 CET. #Sibos https://t.co/rZpK28x4xn pic.twitter.com/FUV1tXjy8m

— Sibos (@Sibos) October 5, 2020

According to the FinTech Futures report, the deputy governor confirmed that the closed pilots were launched in Shenzhen, Xiong’an and Suzhou. The PBOC also plans to test the digital yuan during the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing. The bank researched more than 6,700 use cases or a central bank digital currencies in sectors like bill payments, transportation, shopping, government and catering services, and more.

About 5000 medical workers in Shenzhen received a “red envelop” with digital yuan for their contribution to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The funds will be spent as specified merchants in the area. Yi Fei reported noted that the evolution of cryptocurrencies is the main element that will allow the bank to improve the cross border payments:

 “We could achieve interoperability and address the trilemma—low costs, low risks, high efficiencies—by using digital fiat currency. To protect fiat currency from these cryptoassets and safeguard monetary sovereignty, it is necessary for the central banks to digitize banknotes through new technologies.”

The PBoc regarded the pilot project as an important financial infrastructure as Fei explained adding that:

 “In recent years, with the development of distributed ledger technology and cryptoassets such as Bitcoin, stablecoins have emerged and triggered a new wave of competition attempting to reap profit from substituting the fiat currency in circulation.”

China will likely reduce the holdings of the US Treasury bonds to under $800 billion from the current one of $1 trillion before the digital yuan launch. The emergence of the Chinese CBDC could have major implications as the US lawmakers met to discuss the need of a digital dollar as well in light of China’s DCEP.