China’s Digital Yuan Gets Support from Ant Group in Trials

Hailed as one of the world’s largest e-commerce and investment firms, the Alibaba Group is all set to leverage its support and participate in the trial rounds of China’s highly-anticipated Digital Currency Project through Ant Group, its affiliate company. The conglomerate will take pride in being one of the first private ventures to promote the Digital Yuan solution amongst users. The facility will be available via Ant Group’s leading mobile payment app, Alipay, for expanding the trial runs.

The Ant Group owns a 30% stake in MYbank that works as an online-only banking institution. This banking entity will allow some investors to integrate their accounts or wallets with the native Digital Yuan application or the RMB app easily with the Alipay portal. The pilot testing will enable users to use virtual currency for dealing with their day-to-day transactions.

The Ant Group, along with MYbank, will play a significant role in expanding the trial coverage of Digital Yuan or e-CNY and pursue research work for enhancements and developments, stated the firm in an interaction. The MYbank team recorded a surge of 68% in 2020 in comparison to 2019. The team managed a strong customer cluster of over 35 Million business channels and individual investors.

Earlier in February, news reports revealed that MYbank and Tencent supported WeBank will support the pilot run of the digital currency project. However, the WeBank accounts are not yet activated for public use on the RMB app or the Digital Yuan portal. The RMB app has witnessed the active participation of six leading domestic banks via the inclusion of their sub-wallets on the hub. The Internet Commercial Bank is the seventh banking entity to join the RMB app as the latest sub-wallet project.

The virtual currency project branded as the e-CNY is a long-awaited project of China’s banking leader, the People’s Bank of China. The entity has been keenly working on the project and is involved in running trials across various verticals in the financial sphere.

The launch of the Digital Yuan will help China evolve as the first country to release its native digital currency for mass usage. It will open a new domain of decentralized finance and business in the region. The expansion of trials will help the authorities encourage accessibility amongst people during the shopping festivals organized in Shanghai and other major states.