The Agricultural Bank of China has launched pilot ATMs that enable customers in Shenzhen to deposit and withdraw money in the form of digital yuan, the country’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
China
PBOC pilots contactless cards and wearables that let consumers make payments with China’s digital currency
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has expanded its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to include a contactless ‘hard wallet’ and NFC wearables that enable consumers to make in-store and transit fare payments with their digital yuan... More
PBOC to trial online and offline payment functions in second digital yuan red envelope giveaway
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) is to enable participants in the next phase of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot to test for the first time the use of digital yuan for making both online purchases and touch-based in-store offline payments... More
RBR: 100m merchants worldwide to accept card payments by end 2025
The number of outlets worldwide accepting card payments will reach nearly 100m by the end of 2025, an increase driven by government initiatives to promote cashless payments and by an acceleration in the move to contactless payments during the Covid-19 pandemic, research from RBR predicts... More
JCB reports 30% rise in contactless payments volumes
The number of contactless transactions made by some 140 million JCB cardholders across 24 markets increased by more than 30% between July 2019 and July this year, the Tokyo-based payments network reports in a new white paper... More
China to maintain central database of all digital currency transactions
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) will keep a database of all transactions made using the digital yuan, China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), according to China Daily... More
Huawei integrates digital yuan hardware wallets into Mate 40 NFC smartphone
Owners of Huawei’s Mate 40 in China will be able to make transactions in digital yuan from a central bank digital currency (CBDC) hardware wallet built into the soon-to-be-released smartphone... More
Xiaomi lets customers use NFC tags to control their smart home devices
Owners of Xiaomi smart home devices can now configure, link, control and monitor their lighting, security, entertainment systems and other domestic appliances simply by tapping an NFC sticker with their NFC-enabled smartphone... More
NFC Forum reports on consumer attitudes and adoption trends across the world
Seven in ten consumers are confident with the security contactless cards/mobile wallets provide and 88% report a consistently positive user experience with NFC contactless technologies, a survey of consumers in nine countries around the world has found... More
PBOC reports first counterfeit digital currency wallets
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has “found counterfeit digital yuan wallets on the market,” the head of the bank’s digital currency research institute Mu Changchun has revealed... More
Shenzhen residents spend nearly 9m digital yuan during CBDC pilot
China’s ‘red envelope’ lottery giveaway of digital yuan to 50,000 residents of Shenzhen resulted in 62,788 transactions with a total value of 8.764m yuan (US$1.32m) during the week-long central bank digital currency (CBDC) test in the city... More
Central bank digital currency lottery attracts 2m Shenzhen residents
Nearly two million Shenzhen residents, representing 15% of the city’s population, signed up for a chance to win 200 digital yuan (US$29.65) in the ‘red envelope’ lottery held as part of China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot... More
PBOC distributes digital currency to consumers via red envelope lottery
Consumers in the city of Shenzhen are being offered the opportunity to win one of 50,000 ‘red envelopes’ containing 200 digital yuan (US$29.65) that they can spend at any of more than 3,000 retail outlets in the city that now accept China’s central bank digital currency (CBDC)... More
S&P reports on the mobile payments market in China
While Alipay and WeChat Pay have by far the largest number of mobile payments users in China overall, younger and more affluent consumers are more likely to use less well known services such as Du Xiaoman Pay and QQ Wallet, an in-depth market analysis by S&P Global has found... More
Digital wallet user base to increase to 4bn by 2024
The number of digital wallet users globally will increase from 2.3bn in 2019 to 4bn in 2024 and global non-cash transactions will grow to nearly 1.1tn in 2023 from 708.5bn in 2019, according to the World Payments Report 2020... More
PBOC reports results of central bank digital currency pilot
More than 113,000 Chinese consumers have now used a digital wallet supporting “multiple payment methods, including barcode, facial recognition and tap-and-go transactions” to conduct a transaction using China’s new central bank digital currency, the People’s Bank of China has revealed. More
Octopus to launch new transit card that works in mainland China?
Users of Octopus transit cards in Hong Kong could soon be able to pay for public transport fares in mainland China, with the ability to make payments for purchases at stores across the country to follow, the company’s outgoing CEO has told the South China Morning Post... More
DBS reports on the digital currency market in Asia
Asia is leading the way in the use and development of digital currencies and remains the world’s largest digital payments market, with China alone accounting for more than half of the total transaction value worldwide, according to a new research paper published by Singapore’s DBS Bank... More
BIS reports on central bank digital currency initiatives around the world
Countries with digitised and innovative economies are more likely to be developing central bank digital currency (CBDC) projects while those with a larger informal economy are tending to focus on creating retail CBDCs, a working paper published by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reports... More
China to expand central bank digital currency pilot to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong
China’s Ministry of Commerce has announced that pilot testing of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) developed by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) is to be expanded to cover the country’s major commercial regions and cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Macau... More