- Students using e-CNY SIM card placed on a feature phone to make digital payments
- Parents can view a child’s purchase history and can add funds in their digital currency wallet
China has become the world’s first largest economy to adopt central bank digital currency (CBDC). Since 2014 China was exploring digital currencies and in April 2021, Digital Yuan (also known as Digital RMB/e-CNY) went to public trials to improve the currency’s functionality.
Digital Yuan or e-CNY also made headlines when China launched it at Winter Olympics in Beijing this year. This digital currency has been widely used by the participants and others throughout the event.
China is now extending its trials in several other regions throughout the country. As per the Chinese press reports, the government has rolled out the e-CNY enabled smart ID cards at Hainan Lu Xun Middle School.
This smart ID card is a SIM card placed in a palm-sized mobile phone. In China, smartphones are not allowed in lower and middle schools, that’s why they gave these special feature phones to students with e-CNY SIM cards.
This device is co-developed by ICBC (Industrial and Commercial Bank of China) and China mobile.
Students can use this phone to make online payments in school campus stores; also some are listed as off-campus stores if they are approved by school authorities.
This phone supports NFC payments. NFC (Near Field Communication) technology initiates contactless payment via mobile wallets in close proximity.
Parents can view payments made by their children (purchasing history) and also can add funds to their digital currency wallets via the e-CNY app.
China has launched the e-CNY app in the pilot cities and only users who are on the list of pilot cities can access it. This app is an official digital currency wallet in China.
Parents can add three contact numbers on speed dials in a device so that students can call in case of emergency. In addition to this, they can also add another 20 numbers for incoming calls to the device.
This e-CNY enabled SIM also has the feature of GPS for location tracking. Using this GPS tracking feature, parents and school administrators can track students’ location.
Parental control over the activities of children is the controversial yet amusing feature this central bank digital currency (CBDC) enabled device offers. Parents can keep track of their child’s spending as well as of their well-being.
Read About – What is Central Bank Digital Currency?
There is one more initiative has been taken by China to pilot their CBDC. As per the reports, consumers can use e-CNY to prepay merchants in the Hainan Free Trade Port region for goods and services in order to stabilize revenue streams for merchants.
China is also focusing on its wholesale cross-border CBDC trials with M-CBDC Bridge (MBridge) project which involves Hong Kong, Thailand, and the UAE.
What is the name of Chinese digital currency?
China’s digital currency is widely known as e-CNY. But it has multiple names such as digital Yuan, digital RMB, e-Renminbi (e-RMB), the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP).
What is e-CNY?
e-CNY is china’s official digital currency regulated by the People’s Bank of China. It is the digital or virtual form of China’s fiat currency Renminbi (also known as the Yuan).
What is Central Bank Digital Currency?
Central bank digital currency is a digital form of a country’s fiat currency.
Does any country have a CBDC?
The Bahamas, Nigeria, and 7 other countries in Eastern Caribbean have launched their own central bank digital currencies (CBDC).
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