Before and after the "May 1st" holiday, the "May 5th Shopping Festival" in Shanghai and Jiangsu was very popular. Supporting digital RMB consumption has become the main highlight of the event and attracted widespread attention.

It is understood that the "May 5th Shopping Festival" was launched on April 30, and the event will continue until June 30. Citizens participating in the digital renminbi pilot can make digital renminbi payments at any merchant in Suzhou and Shanghai that has opened digital renminbi acceptance. The digital renminbi of consumption has been realized.

Analysts pointed out that a large number of trials and promotion of digital renminbi not only solved the problem of the "last mile" of application, but also subtly established new payment habits.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that many people are also looking forward to the application of digital renminbi cross-border payment. Especially in the 25-year strategic cooperation agreement between China and Iran, the oil and trade between China and Iran are settled in renminbi and digital renminbi, which has attracted the attention of the world.

According to incomplete statistics from the media, in the past year, a total of 8 rounds of tests and more than 1.2 million people participated in the "Digital RMB Red Packet" pilot activities in pilot cities such as Shenzhen, Suzhou, Beijing, and Chengdu.

Orderly expansion of pilot scope

In the past two years, the development of digital currencies by the central banks of many countries has accelerated, which is nothing new. Chetan Ahya, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, said in a client note that 86 percent of the world's central banks are exploring digital currencies, and efforts are now gaining momentum.

The difference is that it seems that in most countries, there is a lot of thunder and little rain, and few people have actually heard of it. Coincidentally, China's digital renminbi can be described as thriving, and it is an out-and-out "leader".

According to the data, the research and development of China's digital renminbi began in 2014, and the central bank established the Digital Currency Research Institute in November 2016.

Beginning in April 2020, the digital renminbi will be piloted in four cities: Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiongan New Area, and Chengdu. According to the data, in April 2020, Xiong’an New District held a digital RMB pilot promotion meeting, and 19 units including McDonald’s, Starbucks, Cainiao Station, Jingdong Unmanned Supermarket, etc. participated; Employees of high-level agencies, enterprises and institutions issued 50% of the transportation subsidies in the form of the central bank's digital renminbi; in the following October, Shenzhen issued red envelopes totaling 10 million yuan to 50,000 successful lottery candidates, further expanding the application of digital renminbi tests Scenes. Subsequently, Chengdu also carried out a similar pilot.

According to incomplete statistics from the media, in the past year, a total of 8 rounds of tests and more than 1.2 million people participated in the "Digital RMB Red Packet" pilot activities in pilot cities such as Shenzhen, Suzhou, Beijing, and Chengdu.

According to Xinhua Finance, as of now, pilot projects have been carried out in many cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Suzhou, Xiong'an, and future Winter Olympics venues, covering online and offline transaction scenarios. In addition, the second batch of pilot projects will include new regions such as Changsha, Hainan, Qingdao, Dalian, and Xi'an.

On April 28, the People's Daily Overseas Edition published an article "covering catering services, living bill payment, shopping consumption, transportation and other scenarios, and the digital renminbi is getting closer and closer to us." The article stated that as a new payment method in the digital economy era, the digital renminbi has great potential.

Experts said that the reason why the digital renminbi has received wide attention is that it is convenient and fast. Since there are only payers and payees, this payment method can be credited to the account in real time; in an offline state, payment can also be made like cash. More importantly, due to the realization of controllable anonymity, merchants and third-party platforms have no right to obtain consumers' identity information and payment data, and the privacy is higher.

It is worth mentioning that Li Bin, director of the Macro-Prudential Bureau of the People's Bank of China, also introduced at the press conference on financial statistics in the first quarter of 2021 that the scope of the digital renminbi pilot is currently expanding in an orderly manner, and the next stage will be based on the opinions of all parties involved in the pilot. Feedback, continuously improve and optimize digital renminbi technology, business and policy solutions, deeply explore digital renminbi application models, strengthen digital renminbi versatility and inclusiveness, improve product functions and applicability, and improve system security and stability.

On April 28, the People's Daily Overseas Edition published an article "covering catering services, living bill payment, shopping consumption, transportation and other scenarios, and the digital renminbi is getting closer and closer to us." The article stated that as a new payment method in the digital economy era, the digital renminbi has great potential.

In addition, the digital renminbi APP has been updated a few days ago, showing that the six major state-owned banks of Industry, Agriculture, China, Construction, Communications, and Postal Savings have added multiple sub-wallets. Digital RMB can be used for payment on Ctrip, Tuniu, SF Express, etc.

Not long ago, at the Boao Forum for Asia, Li Bo, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said that in the future, China will continue to do a good job in the pilot work, expand the scope of the pilot, and create a digital RMB ecosystem.

According to the research report of Great Wall Guorui Securities, the process of implementing digital renminbi will accelerate in 2021. In addition to industry, agriculture, China, Construction, Communications, and Postal Savings, China’s six major state-owned banks have already begun to promote digital renminbi in some pilot cities such as Shanghai, Changsha, and Shenzhen. In addition to the RMB currency wallet, many application scenarios of leading Internet platforms such as JD.com and Meituan have begun to accept digital RMB.

It can be seen that the comprehensive promotion of digital renminbi from individuals and businesses is a major feature of this year.

In January of this year, Jingdong Group piloted digital renminbi salary payment, and issued the first batch of digital renminbi salaries to some employees stationed in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Changsha, and Xi'an. On April 25, according to media reports, the relevant person in charge of Tencent revealed that since the launch of the digital renminbi project of the People's Bank of China, Tencent has been deeply involved in the design, research and development, and operation of digital renminbi, providing a full range of solutions for the implementation of the digital renminbi project. support. In the future, Tencent will further carry out controllable pilot projects under the guidance of the People's Bank of China.

On the same day, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China signed a technical strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Group. The two parties will jointly promote the construction of a digital RMB technology platform based on Ant Group's independent research and development of distributed database OceanBase and mobile development platform mPaaS.

In addition, the digital renminbi APP has been updated a few days ago, showing that the six major state-owned banks of Industry, Agriculture, China, Construction, Communications, and Postal Savings have added multiple sub-wallets. Digital RMB can be used for payment on Ctrip, Tuniu, SF Express, etc.

On the morning of April 26, the use of digital renminbi in the traffic scene of Hainan Free Trade Port was officially launched. On the same day, the launch ceremony of the digital renminbi transportation scene jointly organized by the Hainan Branch of the Bank of China and Hainan Haiqi Transportation Group was held at the Haikou Automobile Terminal, marking the official launch of the use of digital renminbi in the traffic scene of the Hainan Free Trade Port. Hainan, as the only region where the digital renminbi is piloted in the whole province, will be piloted in the whole region and in multiple scenarios in the future.

Pan Helin, executive dean and professor of the Digital Economy Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, said in an interview with Securities Daily that the biggest highlight of the digital renminbi pilot in the near future is cross-regional linkage. On the one hand, it is the linkage of enterprises to promote consumption through the digital renminbi pilot.

Pan Helin believes that the cross-regional linkage of digital renminbi is a further pilot of its operating mechanism. In the future, more regions will conduct cross-regional payment linkages to understand and explore the problems existing in the cross-regional use of digital renminbi. This will further popularize digital renminbi, enrich payment scenarios, and further realize the sinking of digital renminbi usage scenarios, benefiting more small and medium-sized cities.

Recently, Song Xiangqing, deputy dean of Beijing Normal University’s Institute of Government Management, said that the wide-scale promotion of digital currency will bring major changes to the current payment system and currency structure.

The data also shows that with the support of the Bank for International Settlements Hong Kong Innovation Center, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Central Bank of Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates jointly launched a research project on the digital currency bridge of multilateral central banks, aiming to explore the use of Distributed ledger technology enables round-the-clock simultaneous settlement of cross-border transactions of central bank digital currency pairs, that is, PVP settlement.

Cross-border payment is expected to break the situation

"Digital currency is the future." Not long ago, J. Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that while the United States was lagging behind, China has now launched a digital renminbi.

At present, promoting digital currency research and development has become an important policy for the development of currency markets in various countries. Others say that digital currency is a new battlefield that the world's major economies are unwilling to miss.

In March this year, China and Iran formally signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement. Among them, the oil settlement and trade transactions between China and Iran will be settled in Chinese RMB and digital RMB. The news shocked the world.

Analysts believe that this is an important signal for the internationalization of the digital renminbi, that is, taking the opportunity of Sino-Iranian cooperation to promote the internationalization of the digital renminbi.

"The implementation of this agreement will help the US dollar and oil 'unbundle'." Some outsiders even believe that this shows that China has begun to try to link the renminbi and the digital renminbi to oil.

It is worth mentioning that in February 2021, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority conducted technical tests on the use of digital renminbi.

On April 1, Wang Xin, director of the Central Bank’s Research Bureau, said that the cooperation between the central bank and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is routine work, and there will be more and more digital renminbi test scenarios in the future. On April 15, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong Monetary Authority stated that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority is now discussing the next phase of the test plan with the People's Bank of China, and will conduct technical tests on further expanding and deepening the application of digital renminbi for cross-border payments.

The data also shows that with the support of the Bank for International Settlements Hong Kong Innovation Center, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the Central Bank of Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates jointly launched a research project on the digital currency bridge of multilateral central banks, aiming to explore the use of Distributed ledger technology enables round-the-clock simultaneous settlement of cross-border transactions of central bank digital currency pairs, that is, PVP settlement.

Wang Xin said that the design of my country's digital renminbi is mainly used for domestic retail payments, but when conditions are ripe, if there is market demand, it is also achievable to use digital renminbi for cross-border transactions.

Recently, Li Wei, deputy chairman of the National Financial Standardization Technical Committee and director of the Science and Technology Department of the People's Bank of China, wrote in the "Tsinghua Financial Review" that legal digital currency is an important infrastructure in the era of digital economy. To promote the construction of digital financial infrastructure with legal digital currency as the core, it is necessary to give full play to the leading role of standard technical support, interconnection and regulation, and to support the construction of an efficient and stable legal digital currency operating mechanism with a sound standard system to help the development of digital RMB. Zhiyuan.

He believes that my country, as a country that started research on legal digital currency earlier, has achieved positive results in three aspects: first, it has established a legal digital currency standard working mechanism; second, it has initially formed a legal digital currency standard framework; Participated in the construction process of international legal digital currency standards.

However, Zhou Xiaochuan, the former governor of the People’s Bank of China, said that the starting point of the digital renminbi is to do a good job in retail and upgrade the retail system. Therefore, improving the efficiency of retail systems is fundamental to doing all other business. On this basis, wholesale systems and cross-border payment operations are possible.