China’s state-run commercial banks are conducting large-scale internal testing of a digital wallet application in preparation for rolling out a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Employees at state-run banks in cities including Shenzhen have started internally testing an app that will be used for transferring money and making payments, a Reuters report stated. The trial marks a move closer to the official launch of its CBDC.
China launched an initial mobile application back in April for CBDC project trials. Screenshots purportedly revealing an internal mobile application circulated on WeChat at the time.
The leaked screenshots of the digital Yuan app at the time showed that there would be an “offline mode” included where users would be able to send the CBDC, sometimes referred to as DC/EP, by simply touching the sender’s and receiver’s phones together.
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) cited on Monday that a key task for the second half of this year will be to actively promote the country’s digital currency developments. The testing of the digital wallet falls in line with the central banks’ decision to speed up the roll-out of its digital currency.
Elsewhere, other nations are also exploring, experimenting, and testing central bank digital currencies amid the COVID-19 crisis.