Bank of China, one of China's largest state-owned banks, is testing a new method of offline payments with the digital yuan associated with SIM cards.
The institution has teamed up as part of the initiative with telecom operators China Telecom and China Unicom.
Users will reportedly be able to make payments using their smartphones by connecting the national digital currency application to SIM cards equipped with NFC technology. This means payments can be processed even when the device is off.
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The feature will initially be available on Android phones and only in certain areas of China.
China has been testing the digital yuan for 3 years. By the end of 2021, the transaction volume with e-CNY reached 87.57 billion yuan, and 261 million unique digital wallets were registered.
The tests were conducted in Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong'an, Chengdu, Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi'an, Qingdao, Dalian and the Winter Olympic Games area.