China's CBDC rolled out at transport networks in two more major cities

Chinese passengers can pay their fares in Digital Yuan at the transport networks in Xiamen and Guangzhou city

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Image: Shutterstock

Chinese citizens will now be able to pay their fares in Digital Yuan—China’s CBDC (Central Bank Digital currency)—by scanning QR codes or using swipe cards on trams and trains in two more cities—Xiamen and Guangzhou. CBDC adoption has sharply risen in China since the launch of the CBDC pilot testing project, with transaction volumes reaching $11 billion.

Passengers will be able to pay fares in digital yuan on the Haizhu Tram Line 1. The tram company said that since the launch of the CBDC payments, the usage has increased from a handful of orders in a day to dozens of orders per day. The Guangzhou Tramway Company will undertake publicity campaigns to attract more passengers to adopt the new payment system.

The payment option available is a QR code scan at the ticket gate using the digital yuan app. Buses and subways have also started accepting payments in digital yuan in Xiamen. Passengers can purchase electronic transportation cards from the Xiamen Bus App or the Xiamen Metro app. Passengers can select the means of payment as digital yuan to transact CBDC payments via these cards.

The development is one of the many initiatives by the Chinese government lined up to promote CBDC adoption. These initiatives are the various tests the government is employing before the CBDC program is launched full-scale. Xiamen and Guangzhou join the list of 12 other cities implementing digital yuan payments in their transportation networks.

Last month, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) also announced that the CBDC pilot project would be expanded to 11 new cities. This brings the total number of cities under the CBDC pilot testing project to 23. The adoption initiatives undertaken by the PBoC had made over 260 million users use the digital wallets for CBDC payments early this year.

Apart from its expansion program in Chinese cities, the digital yuan also made its debut at the Winter Olympics. Two more sporting events, still in the pipeline, will promote the use of CBDC—The Hangzhou Games and Chengdu Summer Universiade—in the coming months.

Shashank is the founder at yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash

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