China concluded another mass retail test of its new digital yuan this week after distributing 100,000 e-CNY red packets worth US3 million. Some citizens are skeptical of China's digital yuan, e-CNY, preferring Alipay and WeChat Pay e-CNY has seen 150M transactions worth nearly 10B so far Reuters: British asset manager Abrdn to buy Interactive Investor, an online investment platform, for 1. This allows users of Alibaba’s food delivery app ele.me, grocery delivery app Hema Fresh, and e-commerce platforms Taobao and Tmall to pay for orders using the e-CNY even though the digital currency is a direct competitor to Alibaba’s payment platform, Alipay. The latest test in the tech metropolis of Shenzhen means China aside from earlier trials involving large banks has now tested out its new digital yuan on 250,000 shoppers and restaurant-goers. The new digital yuan - now officially known as e-CNY, or digital CNY - is the fruit of China’s ambitious DCEP (Digital Currency, Electronic Payment) project, a Chinese central bank digital currency (CBDC) that many countries, especially China’s rivals, are watching with foreboding and fear. As a result of China’s progress toward a sovereign digital currency, many countries are now in a race to develop their own CBDC as well. In development for over six years by the People’s Bank of China, the DCEP project is creating a new digital form of China’s money supply. Analysts expect the e-CNY digital currency, once it is officially launched, will greatly expand the RMB’s influence in regional trade as well as eventually, around the world as it challenges the U.S. Instead of looking for an ATM, we will have to look for a plug.Dollar’s leading position in global commerce. What seems clear is that if in the near future we cannot pay in a shop or to a friend, it will not be because we do not have cash in our wallet, it will be because we do not have battery in our mobile phone. However, in the current international scenario, any option is possible. The particularities of the Asian market as well as the relationship of both companies with the Chinese executive make the international expansion of WeChat Pay and Alipay complicated. In Spain, Bizum has in its roadmap the payment in physical shops by QR, although it will have to compete with the current mobile payment systems that are already consolidated among the Spanish population. Whatsapp Pay has already been launched in some countries such as Brazil, although for the moment its functionality is limited to the payment of debts between individuals, and not in physical shops. And of course, an application, WeChat, supported by the Chinese administration itself, which became indispensable in every Smartphone.Īs for other alternatives, Whatsapp is still taking small steps in the implementation of its payment platform through its mobile application. A street trade of small stands and stalls that is still part of the DNA of Chinese life. A new generation of young people who, beyond the strict control of the Chinese government, were curious about Western habits and their way of relating. To give you an idea, A pple Pay is available in 48 countries and has about half as many users as WeChat and Alipay (between 400 and 500 million).Īnd what was the reason for this success? The background was good: a society that was not excessively bankable, in full economic expansion and anxious to consume. Outrageous figures in both cases that show the enormous potential of the Chinese market. According to the portal, WeChat Pay has 800 million active users per month and Alipay about 1200 million, 300 million of them outside the Chinese borders. And the truth is that they did not do badly. Tencent and Alibaba therefore looked for a way to make mobile payments reach everyone regardless of their mobile phone, giving even street traders the possibility to charge for their products without the need for a POS.
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