The People’s Bank of China PBoC has announced that it is organising a new test for the long-awaited digital state currency, mainly in the cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou.
According to reports, PBoC appears to have involved seven state-owned companies in the test. Specifically, it is a collaboration with four commercial banks and three telecommunications giants.
Moreover, it seems that the pilot programme tested by China focuses mainly on sectors such as medical care, education, trade and transport.
The involvement of telecommunication giants in the project seems to be essentially dedicated to the development of SIM cards with integrated e-wallets or to the creation of new independent wallet apps.
The two cities of Shenzhen and Suzhou will, therefore, be the first to see the implementation of the new digital currency of the Chinese State in different ways.
While the small-scale pilot project in Shenzhen has already been tested at the end of 2019, it is stated that in 2020 there will be two phases for its implementation in order to make it widely promoted in the territory.
With regard to Suzhou, however, the report states that the new currency could be tested directly, especially after the news that in November a fintech company supported by PBoC was looking for blockchain and crypto experts precisely in Suzhou.
With this new implementation, commercial banks would be able to obtain the digital currency from the PBoC by depositing the RMB reserve first. Users and companies would then be able to register their e-wallets with these commercial banks so they could use the new digital currency.
So, after declaring to be working on the national digital currency since 2014, China is back on the scene with regard to DCEP (Digital Currency Electronic Payment), constantly publishing new statements about it.
Just last month, in fact, it was revealed by Jack Lee of HCM Capital, Foxconn’s private equity branch, that the new Chinese DCEP could be launched on the market in early 2020.
This period in China could be defined as a race against time, perhaps to, on the one hand, counteract the Facebook Libra project and, on the other, to be the leader of the current global movement, which has recently seen European countries as its protagonists.
In fact, last week, even the European Central Bank (ECB) revealed its propensity to develop its own digital currency if euro cross-border payments do not become faster and cheaper.
Not only that, together with the announcement of the ECB, the governor of the French central bank Francois Villeroy de Galhau has also revealed that they will be launching a project for electronic payments with digital currency in early 2020.