Shenzhen is one of the first pilot cities for the digital yuan. In this regard, industry insiders said that from "early adopters" to "commonly used", from "payment" to "smart payment", from "products" to "industries", digital yuan has gradually entered a better situation in Shenzhen.
Promote consumption and boost domestic demand, digital yuan red envelopes are "super easy to use"
Throughout 2023, receiving digital RMB red envelopes has become the new fashion. Starting from the "Happy New Year Shopping" 100 million yuan catering digital RMB red envelope at the beginning of the year, Shenzhen's digital RMB consumption promotion activities will run through the whole year of 2023.
During the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit, activities such as the digital RMB cultural tourism consumption vouchers in Yantian District and the digital RMB consumption vouchers in Guangming District were in full swing, and Shenzhen people experienced a wealth of digital RMB preferential activities in a pleasant atmosphere of "catching up with the fashion", and the country's first digital RMB Shenzhen-Hong Kong cross-border shopping festival in Futian District and Luohu District also allowed Hong Kong people to experience the convenient digital RMB payment in Shenzhen for the first time.
According to Ji Huangkai, head of the digital yuan special working group of Bank of China Shenzhen Branch, during the 2023 "Cross-border Carnival" in Luohu District, Hong Kong people with hard wallets can enjoy a 20% discount when spending at more than 1,000 designated merchants in Luohu District, and the Luohu District Government will give subsidies, with a maximum subsidy of 200 yuan per person when spending 1,000 yuan; The Luohu District Government will provide subsidies to encourage Hong Kong people to take public transportation, which will drive consumption by merchants along the route.
"At present, the hard wallet received by Hong Kong residents is the exclusive hard wallet of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (dark blue space bird's-eye view of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao night view card), which has unique commemorative significance. Ji Huangkai told the Financial Times that during the "Cross-border Carnival" in Luohu District (March-October), a total of more than 25,000 Hong Kong residents applied for digital currency hard wallets in the Greater Bay Area on their own, and the equipment was running well.
Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Bay Area exclusive hard wallet (dark blue space bird's-eye view of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao night view card face)
"In the past two years, the Shenzhen Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China has carried out nearly 100 red envelope subsidy activities, and has issued nearly 150 million yuan of digital red envelopes, involving industries such as culture, sports and tourism, fishery, catering, jewelry, and weddings, integrating digital RMB into consumers' clothing, food, housing, transportation and entertainment. Wang Jiangru, general manager of the Digital RMB Innovation Laboratory of the Shenzhen Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China, introduced the relevant activities, "Our bank launched a series of green travel activities, and was the first to launch the digital RMB APP on the tram in Longhua District to scan the code to take the train; in the subway, the 'Agricultural Bank of China wallet, travel with you' preferential discount activity, a total of 400,000 people participated, and helped the government's policy of 'promoting consumption and expanding domestic demand', in Longgang Gankeng Town, Dapeng Seaside, Guangming Hongqiao, Tourist attractions such as Yantian and Dameisha have set up digital currency consumption scenarios and carried out preferential activities, with more than 120,000 customers participating. ”
It is understood that in 2023, governments and operating institutions at all levels in Shenzhen have carried out a total of 80 digital yuan consumption promotion activities, and the scope of activities has expanded from catering and retail to tourism, accommodation, gold consumption and other fields, forming a new normal to drive consumption, and also providing an effective guarantee for consolidating the user base of digital yuan, in the first 11 months of 2023, Shenzhen has an average of nearly 2 million monthly active wallets.
The reporter learned that compared with traditional consumption vouchers, the write-off rate of most consumption vouchers issued using e-RMB exceeds 90%, and the write-off rate in some places is even as high as 99%. This means that the issuance of consumption vouchers by e-CNY can better play the role of fiscal funds in stimulating consumption.
Some industry insiders explained to the Financial Times that the digital yuan red envelope is beneficial to all parties. From the perspective of consumers, as a national legal tender, users in the pilot areas can open e-RMB wallets without bank accounts, and there are few restrictions on the use occasions, and they can be flexibly split and used. From the perspective of financial efficiency, e-RMB consumption vouchers can not only simplify the operation process of the financial department, improve the automation of users' application and issuance, but also strengthen the implementation guarantee of consumption subsidies. In terms of the actual effect of stimulating consumption, the consumption amplification effect of the issuance of e-RMB consumption vouchers in the pilot areas is more than 15 times, which effectively promotes the replenishment of social consumption and the release of potential.
Smart contract applications begin to take shape, taking a "key step" towards assured consumption
In addition to daily payments, the deployment of smart contracts on wallets of e-CNY is becoming an important direction for the innovative application of e-RMB. Among them, there have been many explorations to prevent merchants from misappropriating funds in the prepaid consumption service scenario.
According to the reporter's observation, prepaid consumption has been applied in many markets in Shenzhen, including haircut cards and supermarket cards of several hundred yuan, to beauty cards and fitness cards of 10,000 yuan. However, in recent years, problems such as "difficulty in returning cards and refunds, and merchants running away with money" have occurred from time to time in the field of prepaid consumption, infringing on the rights and interests of consumers. "Recently, our bank also joined hands with Goodfeli Fitness to hold the launching ceremony of the first large-scale chain fitness institution in Nanshan to further consolidate social consensus, promote the quality and expansion of consumption, and promote high-quality economic development. Wang Jiang said.
Specifically, when a consumer advances funds to a merchant, the operating agency creates a digital wallet loaded with a smart contract for each consumer, and on the one hand, the terms of the contract are written into the smart contract, and the merchant cannot transfer the funds prepaid by the consumer at will, and on the other hand, the prepaid funds are still owned by the consumer before the actual consumption, which can protect the safety of the consumer's funds even if the merchant goes bankrupt and liquidates.
Sun Rongjian, Director of the Currency Issuance Division of the Shenzhen Branch of the People's Bank of China, introduced that compared with the traditional way of prepaid fund supervision through bank accounts, consumers, operators, banks and industry authorities have become participants in capital supervision. The freezing and release of funds can be carried out automatically throughout the whole process, and neither party can use the prepaid funds before the operators and consumers complete the agreed services, which effectively guarantees the safety of the prepaid funds. In addition, the full automation and capital security of this model no longer require the industry authorities to supervise the prepaid funds from a technical point of view, and also reduce the cost of banking business, consumers and operators can conduct mutual trust transactions, and also add a "safety lock" to the prepaid funds.
The advantages of smart contracts in the field of prepayment are summarized by industry insiders as the "four natures" balance principle, that is, the safety of consumers' funds and the convenience of payment, the reasonable profitability and sufficient liquidity of operators, and the creation of a sustainable digital yuan smart contract application ecology.
In addition, the Financial Times reporter learned that combined with the digital RMB transaction flow information of prepaid merchants, various operating institutions are also actively exploring the financial support prepaid merchant model. For example, the Shenzhen Branch of the Agricultural Bank of China has opened up inclusive financing channels for merchants entering the e-RMB prepaid platform, and pioneered low-interest credit loan products such as "prepaid e-loan" and "order e-loan". At present, nearly 200,000 yuan of credit has been approved for 6 catering merchants such as Xian Songjia, enriching the cash flow of enterprises and helping merchants operate steadily. China Construction Bank Shenzhen Branch innovatively launched the digital RMB "prepaid loan" to provide comprehensive financial services for merchants, and successfully realized the automatic loan approval of prepaid merchants through the big data model to meet the liquidity needs of merchants for daily business turnover, and successfully issued the first loan to a catering merchant in Futian District, Shenzhen.
Source: Financial Times client
Reporter: Ma Meiruo
Editor: Yu Siqing
Email: [email protected]