On Friday, we wrote about China rolling out “aggregate” or unified QR codes for payments that support the digital yuan central bank digital currency (CBDC) as well as Alipay, WeChat Pay and UnionPay QuickPass. This would quickly expand the number of outlets that support the CBDC. Now there are also plans for a Chinese wholesale CBDC.
In a speech yesterday, Mu Changchun, the head of the central bank’s Digital Currency Research Institute, reiterated the QR code change, saying the digital yuan must be available for all retail scenarios.
“What needs to be upgraded is the payment tools used in retail scenarios. That is, using digital renminbi as the payment tool in all retail scenarios,” said Mr Mu. He outlined interoperable and standard QR codes as the first step. “In the long term, we will steadily upgrade payment tools,” although he did not elaborate in what way. However, he said the business models will not change, but payments will become cheaper.
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