Digital Yuan Will Revolutionize Chinese Retail Payments – Central Bank Exec
A Chinese central bank chief has claimed the digital yuan will revolutionize the way the nation makes retail payments, and suggested the CBDC could one day “completely replace” cash.
Per Yicai, Mu Changchun, Head of the Digital Currency Research Institute at the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), made the comments at the China International Financial Annual Forum this week.
Mu said it would be important to ensure that the digital yuan was accepted “in all retail payment scenarios” in Mainland China.
He also called on the PBoC’s banking and e-pay provider partners to streamline their QR code technical protocols.
At present, wallets are hosted by the PBoC or a number of mainly state-run banks.
The private-sector e-pay powerhouses WeChat Pay and Alipay have also added e-CNY functionality to their apps.
But all of these partners have thus far sought to integrate e-CNY payment options with their own conventional pay interfaces – rather than with one another’s offerings.
This fact, Mu suggested, means that merchants can face IT-related adoption issues with their POS devices.
The South China Morning Post quoted Andrew Fei, a partner at the Hong Kong law firm King & Wood Mallesons, as explaining:
“A single, unified, and standardized QR code that supports e-CNY payments as well as Alipay, WeChat Pay, and existing electronic payment methods can incentivize more widespread use of e-CNY by making it more convenient for consumers to use, and for merchants to accept, e-CNY in the retail context.”
Mu added that banking and e-pay partners also needed to perform a series of upgrades to help drive further CBDC adoption efforts in the retail payments sector.
But analysts have claimed that Mu’s comments were actually aimed at retailers, not partner
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