Digital yuan app on the shelves, these places users can "taste the early"

The Digital Yuan App is on the shelves.

On January 4, 2022, the Digital Yuan App ushered in an upgrade, officially upgrading the previous "beta version" to a "pilot version".

At present, the digital yuan is still in the routine testing stage of the R&D process, and the whitelist users of the pilot area selected by the designated operating agency of the digital yuan can register for the app, including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi'an, Qingdao, Dalian and the Winter Olympic scene (Beijing, Zhangjiakou). Users need to judge whether they meet the registration conditions based on their location.

Previously, the scope of users who participated in the experience of the digital yuan was narrow, only the "winning users" in the promotion activities of the relevant cities and the "whitelist" users invited to participate in the test within major banks, and the download channel was downloaded through the link in the mobile phone SMS.

According to the official introduction, the developer of the Digital Yuan (Pilot Version) App is the Digital Currency Research Institute of Chinese Min min bank, which is the official service platform for the pilot of China's legal digital currency - Digital Yuan for individual users, providing the opening and management of digital yuan personal wallets, and the exchange and circulation services of digital yuan.

Compared with the beta version, the newly listed pilot version has added two designated operating institutions of WeBank and China Merchants Bank - the current designated operating institutions of digital yuan include six major banks (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, Postal Savings Bank) and China Merchants Bank, MYbank (Alipay) and WeBank (WeChat Pay).

In terms of functions, the pilot version has added functional entrances such as "sticking a sticker" and "touching a touch", that is, using the NFC function of the mobile phone, so that the App can provide basic management functions such as transfer in, transfer out, and query for the hardware wallet. Previously, the most important functions of the beta version of the digital yuan were "sliding up payment", "sliding collection" and "scanning code payment"; clicking on the wallet picture can recharge the digital yuan or deposit the digital yuan into the bank.

In terms of application scenarios, there are nearly 50 existing scenarios (sub-wallets) in the App - sub-wallets are the main embodiment of the digital yuan service function, users can use digital yuan in the relevant merchant consumption scene interface by adding sub-wallets, with strong scalability, there have been Jingdong, Meituan, Ele.me, Tmall supermarket, Didi, Ctrip, Bilibili, multi-point, Sinopec and other merchant scenarios.

The new version of the App also optimizes personal accounts, security, privacy and other content on the personal information page, and adds biometric information such as facial recognition and fingerprint recognition. In the payment settings field, you can set up the biopayment function.

It is understood that unlike the general bank card divided into a three-level account system, the digital RMB wallet is divided into four levels. Among them, the four types of wallets do not need to enter personal information such as name, ID card number, bank card number, etc., and can directly open an anonymous wallet only through mobile phone number, setting password, and agreeing to relevant agreements, while the balance limit of the four types of wallets is only 10,000 yuan, and the maximum limit of a single payment is 2,000 yuan.

In addition, the three types of wallets require real-name authentication of ID card related information, with a single payment limit of 5,000 yuan; the second type increases the bank account information on the basis of the three types of wallets, and the single payment limit is 50,000 yuan; while the first type of account has the highest requirements, in addition to the authentication information of the second type of wallet, the "operation agency on-site interview" requirement is added, and the transaction has no limit.

According to the White Paper on the Progress of Research and Development of China's Digital Yuan, the digital yuan adopts a two-tier operation model. The central bank is responsible for the issuance, cancellation, cross-institutional interconnection and wallet ecological management of digital yuan, and at the same time carefully selects commercial banks with certain conditions in terms of capital and technology as designated operating institutions to take the lead in providing digital yuan exchange services.

Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China, previously said in public that as of October 22, 2021, 140 million digital RMB personal wallets and 10 million corporate wallets have been opened, with a cumulative number of transactions reaching 150 million and a transaction volume of nearly 62 billion yuan; 1.55 million merchants support digital RMB wallets, covering public utilities, catering services, transportation, shopping and government affairs.

At the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics, the next phase of the digital yuan is about to launch an important pilot. It is reported that around the payment service needs of the seven key areas of the Beijing Winter Olympics, such as food, housing, travel, travel, shopping, entertainment and medicine, Beijing will deploy application scenarios such as unmanned vending trucks, self-service vending machines, and unmanned supermarkets, and launch wearable payment devices such as payment gloves, payment badges, and Payment clothing for the Winter Olympics to facilitate the use of digital RMB payment services by the public at home and abroad.

(This article was first published on the Titanium Media App, author | Cai Pengcheng)