CHINA | Digital Yuan to start being used in public transport networks.
Public transportation providers in the cities of Beijing, Chengdu, and Suzhou are now taking digital yuan payments, broadening the usage of e-CNY.
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, was the first to announce the news, and it is now the first Chinese city to accept digital yuan payments across its full public transportation system, which includes all buses and subway lines.
Following Chengdu’s announcement, Beijing officials said today that e-CNY payments will be accepted on the city’s metro system.
Suzhou officials stated that each stop on a newly built metro line will now accept digital yuan payments.
According to local media estimates, over 16 million individuals in Chengdu have downloaded the Tianfutong app to pay for local transit in the same manner as a card would. They may use the app to purchase tickets for 12 subway lines and 10,350 public buses using digital yuan payment methods such as Alipay, WeChat Pay, and other bank payment systems.
According to the communist party newspaper People’s Daily, all 24 subway lines and four suburban railway lines in Beijing began accepting e-RMB payments today.
Currently, the service is only available to users who have downloaded an Industrial and Commercial Bank of China digital yuan wallet app.
Individuals in Suzhou using an e-CNY wallet app on their phones may now use digital yuan to pay for tickets on the city’s newly inaugurated metro line 5, according to local officials on Weibo.
The fast expansion of China’s central bank’s digital currency initiative has piqued the interest of neighboring countries. According to Reuters, Toshihide Endo, a former commissioner at Japan’s financial sector regulator, said China’s CBDC initiative would be difficult for other governments to ignore, and that Japan and other advanced nations would have to decide how soon to follow.
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