China Launches Official Yuan Wallet App on iOS, Android

The Chinese government's digital yuan wallet promises to accelerate the trend of cashless spending in the country of billions of people in the future.

China's official digital yuan wallet app is now available on Android and iOS mobile app stores. This is seen as a step forward in the development of China's sovereign digital currency as the Beijing Winter Olympics nears.

Developed by the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), test versions of the digital yuan app have been opened to users on iOS app stores. and Android. In the test areas, users were able to use the digital currency through supported organizations that provide the service.

The PBOC has been testing the currency in 10 Chinese cities since the end of 2019 and the venues for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

As of October 22, 2021, more than 140 million individual digital yuan wallets have been opened with a total transaction volume of nearly 62 billion yuan (about $9.72 billion).

China has been moving towards a cashless society for years, and already millions of mobile payment users pay with Tencent's WeChat Pay or Alibaba's Alipay every day.

Compared to those applications, digital yuan payments do not require an intermediary step to link a bank account with an online payment system and allow the government to have greater control over the payments. transactions in real time.

A regular purchase and sale with digital currency will be quite similar to an online payment transaction via Alipay or WeChat Pay. When using those electronic payment tools, users must have a bank account with a certain amount of money inside, the money will be deducted when they pay through the application. Users are not outside the traditional banking system. However, with digital currency, users do not need to have paper money in a bank account. The digital currency is deposited directly into the user's e-banking wallet.

Digital currency is created digitally. It's still cash, but a different kind of cash. Imagine you are living in a virtual world or a video game, digital currency is like the money you earn and spend in the game. It has actual monetary value, only you can't touch it like with regular banknotes.

A Chinese digital currency issued by a central bank. This makes it completely different from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Since all currencies are issued by the central bank, countries use their power to ensure the credibility of that currency.