(Yicai) Oct. 28 — The People’s Bank of China will establish the Digital Yuan Operation and Management Center in Beijing, which will create a dual-center management model for the currency with the Digital Yuan International Operation Center in Shanghai.
The Beijing hub will be responsible for the construction, operation, and maintenance of the digital yuan system, promote the development of the e-yuan, and support the building of the city as China’s national financial management center, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the country’s central bank, said at the Annual Conference of Financial Street Forum yesterday.
Shanghai’s digital yuan center, which opened last month, focuses on building and operating cross-border and blockchain infrastructure for the currency. It promotes interconnection between domestic and foreign financial infrastructure, advances the global operation of the e-yuan and the development of financial market businesses, and serves digital financial innovation.
The new center in Beijing will build and operate the core infrastructure of the e-yuan, PBOC Digital Currency Research Institute, the operator of the two centers, told Yicai. It will also coordinate market institutions to jointly build an open, inclusive, safe, and efficient digital yuan ecosystem, fully advance relevant businesses, and serve the innovation of the monetary and payment systems, it added.
The e-yuan, as a legal tender issued and supervised by the PBOC, has steadily progressed in recent years, with its initial ecosystem being set up. Relevant transactions in pilot areas topped CNY14.2 trillion (USD2 trillion) as of Sept. 30, with 3.32 billion transactions processed and 225 million personal wallets opened via the Digital Yuan App.
The PBOC will continue to optimize the digital yuan management system, study and refine the positioning of the currency in the monetary aggregates, and support more commercial banks to start operating with e-yuan, Pan noted.
