China’s much anticipated Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will start pilot testing this month, according to local outlet Caijing. The first firms involved are the four major state-owned banks, the three big telecoms companies and
Huawei, which recently signed a cloud deal with the People’s Bank of China.
According to Fan Yifei, the deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), the currency has completed its top-level design, formulation, functional research and testing. The next step is to launch pilots, which are planned for Shenzhen and Suzhou.
The currency is referred to as the
Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP). That’s in part because it is a two-tier currency, where the first part involves the commercial banks converting some of their central bank deposits into digital currency. And the banks then distribute this digital currency to consumers. The process is intended to mirror the way physical cash is distributed.
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