Wen | Yuan Jingming
Editor| Lin Zeling Chang Liang
What is the first big event at the beginning of 2022?
The upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics deserve it. Now, 15 days before the start of the Winter Olympics, the winter carnival is about to begin.
It is worth mentioning that the Winter Olympics will apply digital yuan cross-border payments on a large scale. As one of the important "business cards" of the Winter Olympics, it is still unknown what kind of story the digital yuan will tell, but we have reason to believe that this time, the digital yuan is really coming.
On January 6, the General Office of the State Council issued the "Overall Plan for the Pilot Reform of the Market-based Allocation of Factors", which clearly stated that "increase the supply of effective financial services and support the pilot use of digital yuan in retail transactions, living expenses, government services and other scenarios". Subsequently, meituan, Tencent, JD.com, xiaomi and Huawei and other leading platforms have announced that they can already provide users with digital yuan services.
According to the data, as of January 7, since the meituan platform opened the digital yuan payment channel, the number of users pushing digital yuan wallets has increased by nearly 20 times per day, and the average daily growth rate of digital yuan transaction orders and transaction amounts is about 25%.
On January 4, after the launch of the Digital Yuan (pilot version) APP, the number of users of JD.com's digital yuan wallet increased by more than 10 times a day, and as of January 9, the number of downloads of the digital yuan (pilot version) APP in huawei's application market has exceeded 5.8 million times.
In addition to the rapid growth of data on major platforms, the capital market has also brought impetus to the popularity of the digital yuan.
Since the beginning of 2022, a number of digital yuan concept stocks have soared. As of Jan. 7, the top 5 stocks with the biggest gains were all up more than 10%. Specifically, Xiongdi Technology (300546) rose 20%, Huaming Intelligent (300462) rose 13%, New Cape (300248) rose 11%, Qitian Technology (300061) rose 10%, and Cuiwei (603123) rose 10%.
At present, third-party platforms are responding positively and capital is also flocking, but the large-scale popularization of the digital yuan still has a long way to go, and there are more subdivision scenarios waiting for penetration. At the same time, most enterprises in the industrial chain are still in a state of "onlookers" and are still "confused" about how to better enter the digital yuan ecology.
Therefore, how to revitalize the new vitality and vitality of enterprises in the industrial chain? How to let the platforms better promote the popularization of the digital yuan? When will the digital yuan effectively penetrate into all aspects of people's lives, so that the popularization of the digital yuan will be known to women and children and well understood? Undoubtedly, it is a key topic in the next stage.
Who is "paying"?
In 2021, the promotion of the digital yuan has officially entered the stage of "vertical deepening" of the popularization of the whole people, and the first phase of the national test of the digital yuan has reached the goal. In 2022, the development of the digital yuan will usher in a new stage.
Since the launch of the digital yuan pilot work in April 2020, in the past two years, the digital yuan has entered the market through the way of "seeing the big in the small", starting from the field of life services and focusing on retail payments, covering the entire fields of clothing, food, housing and transportation.
Among them, many third-party platforms have become key connectors between users and the digital yuan. Up to now, more than 50 platforms such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Didi, JD.com, iQiyi, and Ctrip support the use of digital yuan payments.
With the help of many platforms, the promotion effect of the digital yuan is remarkable. According to the "White Paper on the Research and Development Progress of China's Digital Yuan", as of June 30, 2021, there were more than 1.32 million digital yuan pilot scenarios, more than 20.87 million personal wallets, more than 3.51 million public wallets, and more than 70.75 million transactions, with an amount of about 34.5 billion yuan.
On January 18, the 2021 financial statistics press conference held by the State Council New Office announced that as of December 31, 2021, the digital yuan pilot scenarios had exceeded 8.0851 million, with a total of 261 million personal wallets opened and a transaction amount of 87.565 billion yuan.
It can be seen that in half a year, the number of digital RMB personal wallet accounts in the mainland increased by 1151%, the cumulative transaction volume increased by 154%, and the pilot scenario increased by 513%. Behind a series of rapidly growing figures is the rapid increase in the acceptance of the digital yuan by the majority of consumer groups.
Of course, the cultivation of C-end consumer habits is only the premise of the digital yuan era, and the "new payment" revolution needs to penetrate more fields.
From 2020 onwards, the central bank began to conduct internal tests of the digital yuan, piloting it in 10 cities including Shenzhen, Suzhou, Chengdu and Shanghai. Judging from the current promotion work of the pilot cities, although life services are the "main battlefield" for promoting the digital yuan, the application of the digital yuan has begun to gradually expand from the C-end to the B-end and the G-end.
In March 2021, two fuel trading enterprises in Dalian completed settlement through digital yuan payment, which is the first settlement between enterprises in the country; Shanghai, Dalian, Changsha, Chengdu, Hainan and Xiong'an New Area have combined digital yuan with the "three rural" scenarios.
At present, there are more and more cases of digital rmb applications on the C-end, B-end and G-end. However, what seems to be a "drastic" change actually requires a gradual process for the popularization of the digital yuan.
In the view of Xia Xiuqi, a financial technology analyst at E-Ou InteractiveOcean, it will undoubtedly be more convenient to promote the digital yuan at the G-end. Although there are many forces to help the digital yuan consolidate the "mass foundation", the habit of using the digital yuan at the C and B ends is difficult to develop in a short period of time, and it is difficult for the digital yuan to benefit the public overnight.
Specifically, C-end digital RMB consumption is mainly carried out through head platforms, such as JD.com, Meituan and Didi, etc., but at present, the payment method of digital yuan is still difficult to enter the fine scenes in the consumption field, and it is these small and numerous consumption scenarios that constitute most of the daily life of consumers.
Xia Xiuqi said that for the B-side, what enterprises need more is "the reason to use the digital yuan", which is directly caused by the lack of market incentives: the digital yuan needs to take into account the migration costs of the enterprise in order to adapt to the B-side demand as soon as possible.
It is clear that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which is about to open, will be a "big test" for the application of the digital yuan. Relevant industry insiders believe that after the end of the Winter Olympics, the digital yuan may prove its universal applicability to the market.
As a key scenario for the large-scale pilot promotion of digital yuan, in the Zhangjiakou competition area of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, 100% of the payment scenarios of the completed venues have been landed, and the rest of the venue scenes have also completed the signing and docking; the Beijing Winter Olympic Organizing Committee has piloted the deployment of innovative application scenarios such as unmanned trucks, self-service vending machines, and unmanned supermarkets, and launched wearable devices such as payment gloves, payment badges, and payment clothing for the Winter Olympics.
Consumers can also experience digital RMB consumption outside the venue, and the consumption scenarios cover transportation, catering and accommodation, shopping consumption, tourism, medical and health, communication services, ticketing and entertainment, etc.
Overall, the current application and promotion of the digital yuan is relatively optimistic. However, as a "new species", once the digital yuan is "invaded", it means setting off a new change, how to reconcile between new and old things?
How many joys and sorrows?
Obviously, after the emergence of the digital yuan, the first to be affected is the third-party payment industry.
Southwest Securities Research Report mentioned that after the digital yuan officially landed, some businesses such as Alipay and WeChat may also be integrated by the digital yuan. And it is certain that once the digital yuan is landed, it will divert users from third-party payment institutions, and its financial business that uses traffic to realize will be significantly negatively affected.
All along, the domestic third-party payment market has shown a high degree of concentration, and several leading enterprises such as Alipay, WeChat, unionPay commerce and so on have almost divided the entire market. The emergence of the digital yuan will undoubtedly balance the competitive landscape of the third-party payment market.
According to the "China 2022: A New Era of Digital Yuan Application", Bloomberg Industry Research estimates that by 2025, the share of digital yuan in China's digital payment market may reach 9%, thereby squeezing payment institutions and banks.
At present, the most important thing for the third-party payment industry to do is to embrace change, adjust and adapt as soon as possible, and strive to find its own opportunities in the new industrial ecology opened up by the digital yuan.
Industry insiders pointed out that for third-party payment platforms, payment accounts are likely to become pure tools, they will lose control of the account, in addition to doing a good job in the existing business there is no other way, the service will be the next round of competition points of "Alipay and WeChat Pay". After all, it is impossible for the central bank and commercial banks to operate at the front desk, and the process of handling acquiring services for merchants and controlling compliance access for merchants will not disappear.
At present, many companies have taken action. For example, the domestic third-party payment company Lakala is from smart POS machines, smart bracelet hardware wallets and other products to the digital yuan industry. At present, Lakala has participated in the digital yuan payment environment of the pilot city and the Beijing Winter Olympics. The company said that the related business has brought some benefits to it.
Zhao Xi, deputy general manager of Shenzhou Fangyuan, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhou Information, believes that from the participation of third-party payment platforms, third-party payment platforms can play the role of wallets and participate in the operation and use of digital yuan. In the future, the payment field will be more diversified, and the digital yuan will inevitably occupy an important position in the payment retail field of the whole society, and will also bring wider competition to the payment field.
In the future, it is not yet known what kind of changes the digital yuan will cause in the third-party payment industry, but what is certain is that the digital yuan has brought a new round of growth boom.
Citic Construction Investment Research Report said that the future of the digital yuan is expected to achieve large-scale promotion, bank IT system upgrades, terminal payment equipment transformation, transaction links involved in digital encryption, identity authentication, security chips, will bring business increments to relevant listed enterprises, related industrial chain ushered in a larger scale of catalysis.
At present, the enterprises in the digital rmb industry chain are mainly software and information services, electronic equipment manufacturing, involving payment equipment and terminal transformation, bank information system services.
Some people believe that at present, all aspects of the digital yuan industry chain are still a blue ocean with low intensity of competition: new technological innovations continue to achieve results, new solutions are constantly proposed, new challenges continue to emerge, and official cooperation institutions will continue to increase.
It can be said that the leading enterprises in various segments of the industrial chain can rely on their own technical advantages and customer base to find huge development opportunities, and small and micro enterprises can also find opportunities for transformation or take-off.
Wait and see or in?
In the capital market, the bright starlight is likely to be fleeting; the fall of giants may also be revived. What doesn't change is that more advanced things often change the ecology in ways that people don't expect. The digital yuan is even more so for the domestic third-party payment ecosystem, not to mention that this advanced thing also carries the will of the state.
The digital yuan has gathered a large number of cutting-edge technologies and governance concepts, and has grown into an intelligent digital currency. To support the operation of such an intelligent system, it undoubtedly requires the participation of multiple innovative forces. In this way, enterprises growing in the digital yuan industry chain will inevitably usher in new growth opportunities.
Zhaoxi said that the manufacturers of hardware equipment acquisition, online e-commerce payments, the equipment of bank outlets, and the internal systems of banks will all be upgraded and transformed, which will bring certain growth space to industrial chain enterprises.
According to The Observation of EOU EquitOcean, the current business scope of digital yuan concept stocks involves four categories: digital software services, digital security, hardware equipment and application promotion, which are basically the digital expansion of traditional businesses.
Enterprises that clearly express their active participation in the construction and promotion of the digital yuan on the public platform can be roughly divided into six categories: regulatory technology, security technology, banking technology, wallet and payment technology, traditional equipment transformation and docking payment scenarios.
According to the 01 Blockchain & Digital Asset Research Institute's "Digital Rmb Industry Picture" report, at present, in the digital RMB industry chain, payment technology and traditional payment system transformation of these two areas are making rapid progress, security and regulatory technology, bankING IT service related companies are mostly in the wait-and-see stage and technology reserve stage, the construction of a complete industrial chain still has a long way to go.
It is worth noting that with regard to the layout of digital yuan-related products, most enterprises in the industrial chain have performed positively and have disclosed the progress of their related research in stages. However, due to the fact that the research of the digital yuan is mainly responsible for the digital research institute, some technical details have not been disclosed, resulting in some industrial chain enterprises can not find a specific direction, in a wait-and-see state, waiting for the right time to enter the game.
However, there are also clear industrial opportunities at present, and with the arrival of the Winter Olympics, the landing of digital yuan in cross-border payment scenarios will be effectively promoted.
As an important application scenario for cross-border payment of digital yuan, the holding of the Winter Olympic Games popularized the commercial use of digital yuan. In addition, after the attempts during the Winter Olympics, once some foreigners have experienced the payment convenience brought by the digital yuan, they are expected to promote it to the Chinese who travel to China and engage in business activities.
With the promotion opportunities provided by the Winter Olympics, the application of digital yuan in cross-border payment scenarios will gradually be accepted by the market, which also means that a new track is opening.
At present, there are many enterprises in the market that make reserves in digital RMB cross-border payments.
Among them, on January 11, China Information said on the investor interaction platform that the company already has the technical reserves of digital yuan in cross-border payments.
Sifang Jingchuang also said on the investor interaction platform that the company provided technical advice and project implementation for the "Multilateral Central Bank Digital Currency Bridge" project. As the only fintech company to participate in the project, the company explored the application of the central bank's digital yuan in cross-border payments and has accumulated technology and successful cases.
End
Market analysis agencies pointed out that the upgrading of the digital RMB software and hardware industry will bring 140 billion yuan of market space, including 5.1 billion yuan of bank core system transformation, 33.9 billion yuan of digital yuan hard wallet construction, 50.7 billion yuan of ATM upgrades, 32.3 billion yuan of smart counter card issuer upgrades, and 19.2 billion yuan of merchant POS equipment upgrades.
In December 2021, the People's Bank of China stressed at its annual work conference that it should "steadily and orderly promote the research and development of the digital yuan" in 2022. Relevant industry insiders predict that in the next 3-5 years, digital yuan services will be widely promoted and used.
The development of the digital yuan system is a long-term evolution, continuous iterative upgrading process, the current promotion and popularization has not yet reached the point of blossoming everywhere, there are still many problems waiting to be solved.
Opportunities often carry unknown and dangerous, enterprises need to determine their own position in the industrial landscape as soon as possible, clarify the competitors and partners in the same link, find their own competitive advantages, based on the business experience accumulated in the past and link up with upstream and downstream partners, in order to consolidate their position in the digital RMB payment ecosystem.
"With a high view, you can see the long sky, and there is no trace of the clouds." The menacing power of the digital yuan also validates the determination of the rise of great powers to gradually weaken the absolute right to power currencies.
We can foresee that in the future, the digital yuan with Chinese power will open a new window of global trade settlement in the seemingly unbreakable international banking system. It is believed that after the curtain is opened, the vigorous vitality of the digital yuan will be seen at a glance, and it is expected that the digital yuan will "speak" on behalf of China in the new world economic order.