People’s Bank of China: CBDC Tested on Small Retail Transactions

Despite numerous reports claiming that the Chinese central bank is experimenting with large volume transactions for its CBDC, the bank recently said that it’s focusing on small retail transactions but confirmed that the trials are ongoing in numerous regions.

China’s CBDC Trialed For Smaller Transactions

In the past few weeks, various reports claimed that the People’s Bank of China had tested its central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a massive transaction volume to determine how much load it can take.

Additionally, further rumors emerged that a house transaction in Shenzhen, South China’s Guangdong Province, supported the use of the digital currency after some citizens claimed that they had received a large volume of digital currency from a bank after selling local property.

However, GlobalTimes refuted these rumors by citing the PBoC. In a report from today, the local news outlet said that the central bank is currently testing the CBDC only in small retail transactions.

“At its current stage, the test’s primary goal is to ensure the digital currency’s operation runs smoothly and safe, and to determine how the CBDC is distributed from the central bank to financial institutions.

Only when trials in retailing are successful will they be carried out in large transaction scenarios,” commented assistant professor of the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence at the Renmin University Wang Peng.

Pilot tests of the digital currency indeed proceed in Shenzhen, Suzhou (East China’s Jiangsu Province), Chengdu (the capital of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province), and the Xiongan New Area in Hebei Province.

The Shenzhen subsidiary is particularly active as of late. After posting multiple positions for blockchain development and research engineers, the local research unit has hired several new team members.

China’s BSN Continues With Developments

The Chinese Blockchain-based Service Network (BSN), aimed to facilitate and lower the costs for blockchain development, has also been active lately. After integrating Chainlink and partnering with NEO, Yifan He from Red Date Technology recently explained BSN’s merits in a comprehensive post.

He highlighted DLT’s benefits but noted that building a network from scratch could take lots of time and funds. In response, BSN makes it “cheap for everyone to use as it must be infinitely close to zero.” He added that the main idea of BSN is to grow as a “huge interoperability environment.”

Additionally, he suggested that the platform could integrate stablecoins such as Tether starting from next year.