Messaging App WeChat Start Supporting Digital Yuan Payments

The messaging app Wechat starts supporting digital yuan payments just before the winter Olympics games begin so let’s read more today in our latest cryptocurrency news.

China’s central bank digital currency is coming to the biggest messaging app WeChat Pay. The app will start supporting the e-CNY while the app has more than one billion users which means the inititive will boost the distribution of the digital yuan dramatically. According to a recent CNBC report, WeChat Pay is a multi-purpose messaging and mobile payments app that will start supporting digital yuan settlements. The company is expected to dramatically increase the number of citizens that operate with the e-CNY as the company has 1.2 billion active users.

AliPay is the main competitor of WeChat in China which also set its focus towards digital yuan settlements. The company run by Alibaba affiliate Ant Group started trials to explore possible adoption. Speaking on the matter, Linghao Bao who is an analyst at consultancy Trivium China, noted that the Chinese consumers are so committed to the two companies which can’t be convinced to switch to a new mobile payment app. He concluded:

“So it makes sense for the central bank to team up with WeChat Pay and Alipay as opposed to doing it on its own.”

The potential expansion of the Chinese CBDC usage came a few weeks before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics. The Authorities already announced they could allow athletes and foreign visitors to use the financial products during the sports event. The People’s Bank of China tried to promote the central bank’s digital currency on plenty of occasions throughout the past few months. Following the efforts, the institution notified the number of individuals who opened digital yuan wallets and the number reached 140 million. Earlier this week, the digital currency research institute of PBOC released the e-CNY app as a mobile wallet for the Chinese CBDC on iOS and Android stores nationwide. The development allows users to download it and to conduct pilot trials of the yuan and the circulation services.

The initaitive was initially only available in Shanghai but it then spread out to other regions of the country. The institute reminded that the feature is in research mode and the e-CNY project is only accessible to accredited users via the institutions which provide digital yuan services like the biggest banks in the country.