The People’s Bank of China (the Central Bank of the People’s Republic of China) has begun to include the digital yuan e-CNY in monetary settlements circulating in the economy. According to the Central Bank, the amount of outstanding funds in digital currency at the end of 2022 was 13.6 billion yuan ($2 billion).
The central bank has not yet confirmed the schedule for the official launch of the digital yuan, only notifying about the pilot project at the Central Working Economic Conference in December 2022. In August, the planned scheme was expanded to 26 major cities and 5.6 million retail outlets with a transaction volume of 100 billion yuan ($12.2 billion).
Now it is being discussed how the introduction of the digital yuan will affect cash, deposits, as well as monetary policy, since e-CNY does not involve interest payments. There are also concerns that this could change the online payment market, which is now dominated by Alipay and WeChat Pay.
