The scope of the digital yuan pilot continues to expand, and more and more cities are joining.
On May 29, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Jiangsu Province Digital RMB Pilot Implementation Plan for Industry and Information Technology" (hereinafter referred to as the "Pilot Implementation Plan"), which caused heated discussions. The "Pilot Implementation Plan" proposes to strive to achieve basic coverage of industrial enterprises on the digital RMB account plan by 2025, and the number of pioneering demonstration application scenarios in the field of industry and information technology is leading in the pilot provinces.
It has only been developed into a global pilot for half a year, and the promotion of digital RMB in Jiangsu Province has pressed the "fast forward button". In Zhejiang Province, next door to Jiangsu, it has been one year since the six cities hosting the Asian Games were approved as pilot areas for digital RMB, and the action around the Asian Games to develop digital RMB has also continued to accelerate. From top-level design to specific application scenarios, the digital yuan in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces is catching up.
Scene infiltration
"Have you heard of the digital yuan in Ningbo?" "Of course." On May 29, when a reporter from Beijing Business Daily raised this question, reader Li Tian (pseudonym) quickly gave an answer.
Ningbo is one of the six cities in Zhejiang Province to host the Asian Games. After more than a year of piloting, the digital yuan has gradually entered Li Tian's daily life. Li Tian recalled: "I can't tell what time period it is, but the digital yuan seems to be on fire in Ningbo, and colleagues and friends around me are using it." The digital yuan app has also become a 'permanent' app on my phone. ”
For the digital yuan, Li Tian feels the most about the round of "red envelope rain". In May 2023, Ningbo has distributed at least three rounds of digital RMB red envelopes, including consumption red envelopes, subway general tickets, supermarket discount coupons and other types. Li Tian bluntly said that the form of distributing red envelopes has greatly enhanced the attractiveness of the digital yuan, allowing users to understand the digital yuan in use.
Li Tian's views were also recognized by Qin Yu (pseudonym), a reader from Changshu City, Jiangsu Province. In April 2023, a news that Changshu City would start issuing digital yuan wages to civil servants and business personnel in its jurisdiction in May put Changshu and digital yuan on multiple platforms. Prior to this, part of Qin Yu's salary had begun to be paid through digital yuan.
"At first, I was a little unused to it, and I always transferred my salary back to my usual bank card. Later, I grabbed the consumption red envelope of digital yuan twice, and Changshu supermarkets, payment, travel and many other aspects can use digital yuan, which can fully meet daily needs, and gradually get used to paying directly through the digital yuan app. Qin Yu explained.
In addition to Ningbo and Changshu, the pilot work of digital RMB in Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province is continuing to advance. The Beijing Business Daily reporter also received consistent feedback from readers in different cities such as Hangzhou and Nanjing, and the acceptance and use of digital RMB in the local area are constantly increasing, and the number of scenarios where digital RMB can be used is also increasing.
In addition, based on the information disclosed by the two places, the Beijing Business Daily reporter found that from the initial "red envelope rain" benefiting small and high-frequency C2B retail payments, it has gradually developed to use the characteristics of "anonymous and controllable", "traceable funds" and "payment is settlement", and the application of digital RMB to enterprise services, government affairs and people's livelihood, which is the commonality of the two provinces and other pilot provinces. At present, Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province have layouts in multiple scenarios of retail consumption, public healthcare, financial inclusion, and B-end and G-end.
Based on the actual situation of the two places, Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province still have differences in the creation of digital RMB characteristic scenarios. Among them, Zhejiang Province currently mainly focuses on the Asian Games, a major international event, and takes the event side and urban application as the key goal; All localities and cities in Jiangsu Province have made efforts in digital government and digital finance according to the actual industrial model.
from top to bottom
Since 2023, with the addition of the fourth batch of pilot cities and the expansion of some pilot areas, digital RMB has achieved rapid development in terms of transaction scale, coverage and application scenarios. 26 pilot areas in 17 provinces and cities have taken the lead in the pilot of digital RMB, forming a number of replicable and replicable pilot experiences in retail, transportation, education, medical care, public services and other fields.
From the perspective of pilot time, Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province is one of the first pilot cities for digital RMB, and was approved to carry out a global pilot at the end of 2022, and Jiangsu Province is also one of the few provinces with global pilot authority. Zhejiang Province, on the other hand, has the pilot rights of the digital yuan in six cities hosting the Asian Games, including Hangzhou, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing and Jinhua in addition to Ningbo, which were approved in March 2022.
The accelerated promotion of the digital RMB in the two provinces can be seen from the multiple work plans around the digital RMB. On May 29, the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Jiangsu Province recently issued the "Pilot Implementation Plan" which caused heated discussions. The "Pilot Implementation Plan" proposes to promote the application of digital RMB in key enterprises and industrial parks in the field of industrial information system, industry and information technology in the province, expand the application scenarios of digital RMB, and strive to achieve basic coverage of industrial enterprises on the digital RMB account by 2025, and the number of pioneering demonstration application scenarios in the field of industry and information technology is leading in the pilot provinces.
This is also the sixth work plan issued by Jiangsu Province for the construction of digital RMB refinement scenarios. According to incomplete statistics from a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, after the release of the "Jiangsu Province Digital RMB Pilot Work Plan" in January 2023, Jiangsu Province has successively released six work plans for corresponding fields in transportation, cultural tourism, civil affairs, housing, education and industrial information, further clarifying the main goals and development steps of the next stage of the digital RMB pilot.
Not only that, Lianyungang, Xuzhou, Suzhou Xiangcheng District, Taizhou, Huai'an, Nantong, etc. in Jiangsu Province have also successively disclosed the work plans and key points related to digital RMB. In April 2023, Zhejiang Province released the "2023 Zhejiang Province Digital RMB Pilot Work Points", and earlier, Yiwu City, under Jinhua City, also issued the "In-depth Promotion of Yiwu Small Commodity Market Digital RMB Pilot Work Plan".
Specifically, in addition to setting specific promotion goals, the digital RMB solutions issued by Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces have made relatively complete development plans in terms of application, scenarios and ecosystem construction, and require all regions to carry out digital RMB-related product innovation in accordance with the plan.
According to Yu Baicheng, chief researcher of Houxue Research, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are relatively ahead in the pilot of digital RMB, and have introduced provincial-level pilot programs or plans, and the pilot plans have completely put forward the pilot work objectives, key tasks and safeguard measures, and have similar requirements in terms of application fields, highlighting important projects, building industrial chains and ecology, and preventing risks.
"The introduction of special regional and industry digital RMB pilot programs by provincial, local and industry competent authorities is more conducive to combining the digital RMB pilot with the characteristics of the development of the digital economy of the local and industry from top to bottom, and promoting the development of the digital RMB more systematically, with a stronger sense of purpose, pertinence and implementation, giving full play to the advantages and creativity of measures adapted to local conditions, and the pilot will also enter a comprehensive, in-depth and regular stage." Yu Baicheng added.
Wang Pengbo, chief analyst of Broadcom Consulting, pointed out that the digital yuan experiment has shifted from a simple scenario and user expansion to the level of system construction, and local governments have paid more and more attention to the promotion and application of digital yuan. Through the unified design and planning of the central bank and local governments, the pilot of digital RMB presents the characteristics of standardization, standardization and institutionalization.
You chase me
It has been more than two years since the initial public pilot of the digital RMB, and it has formed a replicable and generalizable application model in the fields of wholesale and retail, catering, cultural tourism, and government payment related to people's livelihood. Since 2022, the scope of the digital RMB pilot has continued to expand, from the previous point-based pilot in a few regions to the whole region or some cities of 17 provincial-level administrative regions.
The achievements of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces are also outstanding. Data show that by the end of 2022, Zhejiang Province had opened a total of 24.21 million digital RMB wallets, including 800,000 public wallets and 23.41 million personal wallets, 55.34 million transactions, and a transaction amount of 110.4 billion yuan, supporting a total of 1.33 million merchants accepting digital RMB. As of the end of April 2023, Jiangsu Province has opened a total of 4.385 million personal wallets and 374,000 corporate wallets, and accepted 256,000 new merchants, with a total circulation business of 201.91 billion yuan.
According to the corresponding plan, Jiangsu Province will strive to rank first among the pilot provinces in terms of the number of digital RMB scenarios, wallet volume and transaction scale in June 2025, and improve the digital RMB product and service system and digital economy industry chain; Suzhou Xiangcheng District proposed that by the end of 2023, the cumulative transaction amount of digital RMB will reach 250 billion yuan, and the coverage rate of digital RMB in the field of people's livelihood service payment will be 100%; Nantong City proposed that by the end of 2023, the number of digital yuan wallets will exceed 1.2 million, and by the end of June 2025, the cumulative number will exceed 3 million.
Zhejiang Province proposed to strive to reach 2 million application scenarios in 2023, with an average monthly active wallet of 4 million, and an annual transaction scale of more than 250 billion yuan. Yiwu mainly focuses on the small commodity market, proposing that by the end of 2023, the transaction amount of digital RMB will exceed 10 billion yuan, explore and enrich online and offline business scenarios of digital RMB, and establish a digital RMB trade fund supervision platform.
Su Xiaorui, senior consultant of the financial industry of Analysys, said that Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, as regions with active and developed private economies, on the one hand, have better financial infrastructure and high utilization rate of mobile payment, on the other hand, they also have rich enterprise and business scenarios, and can better implement the promotion of digital yuan at the C, B and G ends.
Su Xiaorui believes that the promotion of digital RMB will continue to move forward steadily in the future, which is embodied in three aspects: first, pay attention to the application of digital RMB in the public sector and the value played by the real economy, especially small and micro enterprises; The second is to focus on cutting-edge technologies related to digital yuan, such as smart contracts; The third is to put forward specific work directions and quantitative indicators for the promotion of digital RMB, so that the application scenarios of digital RMB and the number of wallets opened can be further effectively improved.
In Wang Pengbo's view, the maximum value of digital RMB can be brought into play through the promotion and operation of the digital yuan in the market's own regular way. Leveraging digital RMB and industrial integration through market organizations such as Internet platforms, payment institutions and banks has a higher relative leverage ratio, which can also maximize the use of the existing system in the promotion and popularization stage and avoid waste of resources. Give full play to the characteristics of real-time arrival of digital RMB, zero cost, point-to-point settlement, traceability after loading smart contracts, natural unification of information flow and capital flow, etc., and strive to make digital RMB a real financial infrastructure at the G-end and enterprise side as soon as possible.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Liao Meng