- The Chinese government will give away 15M yuan worth of digital RMB (e-CNY) to Shenzhen local residents.
- The move aims to boost consumption amid the recent round of Omicron outburst and promote its digital currency.
- At the end of 2021, the digital yuan had 261 million users.
The People’s Bank of China (PBC), China’s central bank, came up with another digital yuan giveaway. According to sources, it aims to further promote its central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Specifically, Shenzhen’s Futian district government disclosed that 15 million yuan ($2.27 million) in e-CNY will go to its local residents. The latest move is to promote the use of the CBDC. This will also boost the adoption amid the recent round of Omicron outburst.
The giveaway will be divided into 130,000 red packets distributed via Wechat Pay. Consumers can spend the red packets in over 5,000 stores in the district with no minimum purchase needed. This is the first time that the digital yuan pilot covers all eight banks, restaurants, and supermarkets.
In October 2020, the Chinese government first carried out a digital yuan giveaway in Shenzhen, the first pilot cities for the e-CNY. They gave away 10 million digital yuan to Shenzhen residents. However, only 3,389 designated stores in the Luohu district accept the red packets.
Earlier this month, China’s central bank added 6 more cities to test its digital currency. Aside from Shenzhen, the digital yuan is also trialing in Shanghai, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, and six cities in the Zhejiang province. The six cities in Zhejiang province, including Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, and Huzhou, will be hosting the 2022 Asian Games in September.
Recent data from the Chinese central bank also showed that at the end of 2021, the digital yuan had 261 million users. Furthermore, e-CNY has witnessed transactions that reached up to 87.5 billion yuan ($13.8 billion).
