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December 18, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Chinese banks tell staff to recruit up to 300 new digital yuan users each

July 7, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Alipay

Six of China’s top banks have tasked their employees with promoting digital yuan wallets to between 200 to 300 people a year.

Chinese banks have begun a hard sell of digital yuan wallets, asking staff to recruit hundreds of new users each year.

According to a translation of a June 6 article from Shenlian Caijing, employees of top banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of Communications, along with four other state-owned banks, have been instructed to promote digital yuan wallets to an average of 200 to 300 people a year.

To entice new users, employees are able to offer an odd variety of small gifts, such as “laundry detergent, data cables, card holders, Chinese knots, umbrellas, and tissues.”

The banks have included the task of promoting the central bank digital currency (CBDC) on employee evaluations, with the number of CBDC wallet recruits determining each branch's end of year bonuses.

Essentially the banks have deployed an incentive scheme focused on mass recruitment of wallet users, and will reward branches and their employees with favorable performance reviews and monetary bonuses.

Employees of some Chinese commercial banks are required to promote digital renminbi wallets, and each person must promote 200 to 300 individuals. By Jiemian https://t.co/Trl8bF7I22
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 6, 2021

From the Chinese government’s perspective, the ramp-up in digital yuan wallet adoption is part of a move to get a stronger hold over the financial tech market, as it will be in competition with payment service providers such as Alipay and WeChat, who reportedly account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China.

Cointelegraph reported on April 26 that in the lead-up to an online shipping festival on May 5, six of China’s largest banks promoted the CBDC as a better alternative to Alipay and WeChat.

As part of China’s ongoing testing of the CBDC, the local government of Chengdu, located in the Sichuan province, announced on June 2 that it is issuing 12 million digital yuan ($1.85 million) via a lottery to 100,000 residents.

The theme of the lottery is dubbed “Green Travel - low carbon summer” and interestingly, the 12 million digital yuan is pre-programmed to work specifically for public transportation payments, such as bus and subway tickets, along with shared bike rental payments.

Shanghai to Hand Out $3 Million in Digital Yuan Lottery

June 6, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Top Chinese banks promote CBDC over local payment firms for shopping festival

April 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Alipay

Leading Chinese banks are promoting the digital yuan over Alipay and WeChat Pay for an upcoming shopping festival in China.

Some of China’s largest state banks are actively promoting the digital yuan as a superior means of payment to the country’s two leading payment providers, Alipay and WeChat Pay.

In an April 26 report, Reuters revealed that six of China’s largest banks are promoting China’s nascent central bank-issued digital currency, or CBDC, in Shanghai ahead of an online shopping festival on May 5.

The banks are urging retail outlets and consumers to download the digital wallet and make purchases using the CBDC, or e-CNY. This would bypass the current payment methods of choice for millions of shoppers – Ant Group’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay.

The report noted that one bank official appointed to CBDC trial’s rollout in Shanghai under the guidance of the People’s Bank of China specifically described the digital currency as superior to Alipay and WeChat Pay, who stated:

“People will realise that digital yuan payment is so convenient that I don't have to rely on Alipay or WeChat Pay anymore.”

Speaking at an online panel discussion in late March, the head of the PBoC's digital currency research institute, Mu Changchun, stated that Alipay and WeChat Pay account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China, posing risks to the domestic financial system should they experience any issues.

Changchun noted the central bank does not intend to compete directly with Alipay and WeChat Pay, but acts as a backup to “ensure financial stability in case something happens” to them.

However, the state has also been increasing efforts to curtail tech giant dominance and clamp down on anticompetitive behavior in the internet sector. In early April, the government hit Alibaba with a record fine of $2.8 billion for monopolistic practices according to CNN.

The rollout of China’s digital yuan will allow the central government to gain control over a share of the massive troves of financial data that are being hoarded by the country’s top payment providers.

“Big data is wealth. Whoever owns data thrives,” another banking official tasked with promoting the CBDC told Reuters, adding: “WeChat Pay and Alipay own an ocean of data,”

Commenting during the Consensus conference in May 2020, academic Martin Chorzempa stated it is “difficult” for Chinese financial regulators to compel the country’s top payments firms to hand over the data they have collected on their customers. “[China’s CBDC] could potentially allow that central bank to get a lot more access to payment data and also to gain back some power from these companies,” he added.

The six banks in the CBDC pilot schemes comprise the country's largest lenders, including The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, HSBC, and China Construction Bank.

On April 1, China completed its first cross-border pilot of the digital yuan with Hong Kong.

China’s digital yuan is backup to AliPay and WeChat Pay, says official

March 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Alibaba

Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay reportedly account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China.

China’s central bank digital currency, or CBDC, will provide backup for major retail payment services like AliPay and WeChat Pay as its key objective, according to an official at the People’s Bank of China.

Mu Changchun, head of the People’s Bank of China’s digital currency research institute, claimed that China’s digital yuan is needed to ensure financial stability in case “something happens” to AliPay or WeChat Pay, the South China Morning Post reports.

Speaking at an online panel discussion on Thursday, Mu stated that Alibaba’s Alipay and Tencent’s WeChat Pay account for 98% of the mobile payment market in China, which poses certain risks should they experience any issues.

“If something happens to them, financially or technically, that would definitely bring a negative impact to the financial stability of China. In order to provide a backup for the retail payment system, the central bank has to step up and provide a central bank digital currency service,” Mu said.

Mu’s latest remarks come amid a government crackdown on monopolistic practices by the private sector in China as Ant Group and Tencent dominate the nation’s digital payment market. In early March, China’s antitrust regulator fined Tencent for failing to disclose their acquisitions to the state. Previously, Chinese authorities red-flagged a $37 billion initial public offering by Ant Group amid concerns about the company’s size.

During the online panel, Mu also urged global central banks to cooperate to ensure that national digital currencies are compatible with each other. “Central bank digital currency supplied by one central bank should not impede another central bank’s ability to carry out its mandate for monetary and financial stability,” Mu noted.

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, China has been actively expanding its CBDC expertise jurisdiction. In February, the PBoC joined Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates to explore a cross-border CBDC. Previously, an official at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced that the regulator and the PBoC were at the preliminary stages of piloting the digital yuan for cross-border payments.

Our Man in Shanghai: Digital yuan tests, ‘bear market’ and ‘NFT’ searches spike

March 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Ant Group

Digital RMB testing for cross border payments and electric vehicles continues, sentiment takes a dive and blockchain events return to meatspace.

Sentiment in China has slumped as WeChat searches for Bitcoin dropped 7% this week, while searches for “bear market” spiked 102%. One trend that remained strong was NFT-related, with NFTs receiving an 86% increase in WeChat searches over the seven-day period. Token sales were another hot item with interest in Casper Labs surging after signups on CoinList breached 100,000 on global platforms.

One high-profile token sale to emerge from China was DAO-as-a-Service platform Dora Factory. The project, backed by DoraHacks, held a public token launch on March 21 with listings on OKEx, Gate and MXC. DoraHacks is well-known for hosting developer events and is one of the most active blockchain developer communities to originate from China. The team will be hosting a global hackathon series in 2021, landing in regions including Singapore, the United States, Germany and India.

Real world events back for spring season

Cointelegraph China kicked off their Hot Trends 2021 event in Chengdu on Thursday, welcoming a number of projects and industry participants to the southern city. The event’s speeches and panels are exploring the sustainability of trends such as DeFi and NFTs. Chengdu has long been an important city in the Chinese cryptocurrency mining space due to low electricity costs and developed infrastructure.

*Solana and Serum's Defi Night in Shanghai*

Solana and Serum hosted a DeFi Night in Shanghai on March 20 as they continued promoting their ecosystem in Asia. The event also included speakers from Aave, Chainlink, Multicoin Capital, Raydium and The Graph. The ecosystem arms race has become important as major players such as BSC, Huobi (Heco), OKEx (OKExChain), and Solana all attempt to attract their share of the large development pool in cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen and Hangzhou. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried gave a keynote to the event via pre-recorded video.

Digital yuan tests

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority began working with the People's Bank of China Digital Currency Research Institute to test the technology that enables the use of digital yuan for cross-border payments, according to Yu Wai-man. Yu is the current Chief Executive of the HKMA. It announced on March 19 that these financial services are expected to launch in the second half of this year.

Also on March 19, several state-owned companies, under the guidance of the CPC Working Committee began applying the digital yuan to be used as a method of payment in charging electric vehicles in the Xiongan new area near Beijing. Among these companies were a sub-branch of the PBoC, Bank of China, China Telecom and the China State Grid. Linking the digital yuan with clean energy initiatives is quickly becoming a priority for state-related organizations, especially with the announcement that the new five-year plan would target carbon neutrality by 2060.

On March 23, Chinese state media outlet Sina reported that the six largest major government-owned banks have begun testing wallet services for the digital yuan. The banks would be able to whitelist testers who can then download the mobile app and set up a sub-account. Phase 1 of the formal pilot should begin next month

Ant Group’s blockchain paper

Ant Group, a major financial subsidiary of Alibaba, issued a white paper on blockchain and government services on March 17. The paper outlined how government organizations can use information technology, digital identity solutions and blockchain infrastructure to deliver and manage data. Ant Group has had a difficult period after their highly-anticipated public offering was canceled amid concerns about interest rates on electronic lending.

Case studies on money laundering

Finally, on March 21, the PBoC and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (China's highest legal prosecuting authority) released six cases of modern money laundering methods, most of which included Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. In one of the cases, one convicted person received two years in prison and a fine for illegal fundraising via an unlicensed digital currency trading platform.

This new weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations.

WeChat

Real world events back for spring season

Digital yuan tests

Ant Group’s blockchain paper

Case studies on money laundering

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