The Chinese are indifferent to the digital yuan

The trial of digital yuan in Shanghai did not produce the expected results of the Chinese authorities when the majority of users showed indifference.

According to the Bloomberg Over the past time, many international experts have expressed concern about China launching a national digital currency. British historian Niall Ferguson predicts that the digital yuan threatens to threaten America’s dominance in the global financial industry. Michael Hasenstab, head of investment fund Franklin Templeton, said that the digital yuan will weaken the position of the dollar, the reserve currency in the world. The administration of US President Joe Biden is studying the potential threat of the digital yuan to US national interests. However, those who are actually using their digital NTD are indifferent. Shenzhen is the city that runs the largest-scale digital yuan testing campaign. Reply Bloomberg Participants said they were not interested in leaving Ant Group or Tencent Holdings’ online payment apps. Online payment apps have been replacing cash in China for a long time. Photo: Getty Images. No conversion is intended “I’m not excited at all”, Bloomberg quoted Patricia Chen, who works in the telecommunications industry, as saying. She is one of more than 500,000 Shenzhen residents eligible to participate in the digital yuan trial. In this test, participants will download the government’s e-wallet application on their phones, connect to their bank accounts, and can convert up to 10,000 yuan ($ 1,548) in cash to digital currency. number (e-CNY). Similar to Alipay’s Ant Group app and Tencent’s WeChat Pay, digital yuan transactions are done very quickly using QR codes. When there is no Internet, users can use near field communication technology to make payments. Vera Lin – 25, an employee of a financial company in Shenzhen – said using digital yuan is quite easy. However, she has no intention of switching to digital yuan as the current online payment applications work seamlessly with other e-commerce services and platforms. Many people in Shenzhen said they have no intention of switching to digital yuan altogether. Photo: Reuters. Many stores participate in a trial of a 10% discount on digital yuan customers. However, that was not enough to convince Lin. She said Ant Group or Tencent’s platforms often offer discounts on many services, from ride-hailing to food delivery. Privacy is also a concern for Jan Chen, a 33-year-old civil servant. “The fact that the authorities can track every payment transaction is scary,” Chen said. I’m not excited at all User Patricia Chen In addition, some merchants and store owners revealed that they are concerned that information about all transactions goes directly to government databases even though the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) previously secured most of the delivery. translation will be confidential. In March, a representative of the Institute of Cryptocurrencies Research confirmed that PBOC will not directly know the identity of the user. However, the Chinese government may obtain information from financial institutions if it is suspected of illegal conduct. In addition, PBOC also encourages stores and merchants to use digital yuan by using free of charge. Currently, Alipay and WePay apps charge 0.6% per transaction. Difficult to take market share The yuan currently accounts for only 3% of total global payments. Expert Zennon Kapron, Director of consulting firm Kapronasia (Singapore) said that the digital version will only help the Chinese currency increase its market share by 1%. “The global impact of the digital yuan will be very small, unless China changes its economic structure and financial system,” said expert Kapron. Chinese officials themselves also show restraint when talking about the digital yuan. Last month, Mr. Li Bo – PBOC’s deputy governor – affirmed that China is developing a digital yuan to serve the domestic market, not with the intention of replacing the dollar. Previously, former PBOC Governor Zhou Xiaochuan said the digital yuan was a solution to help China fight the potential threat from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Kapron predicts that if the digital currency fails to attract users, the Chinese authorities will take steps to increase the control of data collected by internet and financial companies such as Ant Group and Tencent. . Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Francis Chan also thinks that Chinese authorities can force Internet platforms and businesses to use the digital yuan. Chan and BI analyst Sharnie Wong predict that the electronic yuan will be widely used in China before the 2022 Beijing Olympics. It is likely that the digital yuan will take up 9% of the domestic online payment market share by 2025. That will be a big change, but the digital yuan still has a long way to go before the challenge. status of Alipay and WePay. These two payment applications account for a total of 90% of the market share in China. Expert Michael Ho, director of financial services at Oliver Wyman, also said that convincing the world to accept the digital yuan even more difficult.