The digital yuan (pilot) app is now live on major Android stores and Apple’s App Store. Pilots run in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian and the Winter Olympics scenes (Beijing and Zhangjiakou); other regions cannot register yet.
In practice, new users register with just a phone number and can pay online and offline much as they would with Alipay or WeChat Pay.
After registration, users can open digital wallets with nine banks: ICBC, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, Postal Savings Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, MYbank (Alipay’s affiliate) and WeBank (WeChat Pay’s affiliate).
Personal wallets come in four tiers. A tier-4 wallet needs only a phone number but carries strict limits – 2,000 yuan per payment and a 10,000-yuan balance cap. A tier-1 wallet has no transaction limits but requires phone number, ID card, a personal bank account and in-person verification at the operating institution.
Food, rides and everything in between
With a digital wallet, users can receive and pay offline: scan a merchant’s QR code from the app’s home page, or pull down the wallet page to show your own receiving code. Once MYbank or WeBank wallets are opened, a ‘digital yuan’ entry appears inside Alipay (Shanghai pilot only for now) and WeChat.
Online payment works through sub-wallets: 49 merchants are already listed, across shopping, transport, daily life and travel – JD, Meituan, Ele.me, Tmall Supermarket, Didi, Bilibili, Kuaishou, iQiyi, Tencent Video, Baidu, plus SF Express, the State Grid bill service, Sinopec and China Telecom’s Wing Pay.
Reporters paid for Meituan and Ele.me orders and a ride: top up the wallet from mobile banking or a bank card, authorise the merchant as a sub-wallet, place the order normally, then choose the digital yuan sub-wallet at payment. The flow mirrors any e-wallet.
How it differs from e-wallets
The central bank lists three differences. First, the digital yuan is legal tender – the highest-security asset class. Second, it is value-based: value can transfer without a bank account, offline transactions are supported, and payment is settlement. Third, it offers controllable anonymity, protecting personal privacy and user information security.
The PBoC has worked on legal digital currency for years: a research group formed in 2014-2016, R&D began in late 2017, and pilot testing started at the end of 2019. Under its Fintech Development Plan (2022-2025), ‘data-driven’ remains a guiding principle, and the digital yuan will land in more scenes for wider public benefit.
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