China is one of the world’s leading countries for cashless payment as a report in March 2020, indicated that 83 percent of transactions within are through mobile payment apps, the highest cashless adoption rate for a country in the entire globe. To put into perspective, China has a staggering figure of 776 million mobile cashless payment users, which is more than all population in the European continent combined.
Thus, it is no surprise that the country’s central bank, the Bank of China, is currently conducting a pilot project of Digital RMB, to fully replace the RMB paper notes. The Digital RMB is an app available to download in China via the iOS App Store or Android app stores in the country, and the app even supports devices as old as Android 5 Lollipop.
Recently, the well-renowned Chinese tech media site, ITHome, reported the Digital RMB app (pilot version) has received several welcomed quality-of-life software improvements. The latest version of the app is 1.0.9.0, and is now available on iOS and Android from today onwards. The Digital RMB app changelog is as follows:
- Smaller overall app size
- Faster startup times
- Faster load times
- Software Improvements on PIN-less Biometric Transactions
- Upgraded from a 32-bit application to a 64-bit application
The Digital RMB (Pilot Version) app is an official legal digital currency that is just like your normal RMB paper notes. China is looking forward to transitioning to Digital RMB as the country’s official currency in the future.
The app allows users to create wallets within the app, send and request currency within the app, and allow seamless transactions via QR codes, whether it be sending money to friends or family, or paying for goods and services to a business. And since Digital RMB is set to be the future official currency, merchants in the future must all be using the Digital RMB if they want to earn officially legal money.
However, the Digital RMB is still within its pilot testing stages. But earlier in March 2022, the Bank of China did announce the good news that the Digital RMB project will be expanded to more cities within the country like Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Fuzhou and Xiamen in the near future. The institution also announced that Beijing and Zhangjiakou City in Hebei Province will be converted into pilot cities for the Digital RMB pilot project as well after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics are completed.
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