What’s new: Two major Chinese commercial banks have allowed their customers to start making payments in e-CNY without being connected to the internet, in another push to get more people to use the central bank-created digital currency.
On Tuesday, Bank of China Ltd. (BoC) partnered with telecom giants China Telecom and China Unicom to launch the new feature on the central bank-backed e-CNY app, according to a BoC statement.
On the same day, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC), the world’s largest lender by assets, collaborated with telecom titan China Mobile to make the same feature, according to an ICBC statement.
The feature works by using near-field communication (NFC), a type of wireless technology that can typically be initiated at distances up to 4 centimeters. Taking advantage of the feature requires users to have an NFC-capable “super SIM card” in their phone.
The technology allows payments to be processed even when the phone is offline or dead, the banks said.
For now, the feature is only available on NFC-capable Android phones, both lenders said.
The background: China’s central bank has been developing a national digital currency since 2014, when it formed a task force to create a virtual legal tender that would replace some of the cash in circulation, according to a white paper published by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) in July 2021.
As of August, e-CNY transactions topped 100 billion yuan ($14.5 billion), and more than 5.6 million stores had started accepting the digital currency, according to PBOC data.
Related: Cover Story: The Challenges Ahead for China’s Digital Yuan
Contact reporter Zhang Ziyu (ziyuzhang@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
Get our weekly free Must-Read newsletter.
