French banking conglomerate BNP Paribas is collaborating with Bank of China (BOC) to offer digital yuan to its corporate clients, the South China Morning Post reports, citing a statement published on Thursday.
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As part of the partnership, BNP Paribas China will connect to BOC's system and offer digital yuan (also known as e-CNY) to its corporate clients. SCMP says the French bank also wants to expand usage of e-CNY by integrating it into smart contracts and for utility and cross-border payments.
In April, iHodl reported about China's plans to pay public servants in digital yuan as Beijing is trying to convince the public about benefits of the digitization.
The move affects not only schoolteachers, medical staff, but also journalists for state media outlets. Changshu has been piloting digital yuan since June last year. So far the city processed in digital yuan over 2.5 million yuan (~$363,000) between 4,900 public servants.
In December last year, Xie Ping, a former official of the People's Bank of China (PBoC), noted China's digital yuan gained almost no interest from citizens as the cumulative circulation of the digital currency in the two years of the trial reached only $14 billion. Xie emphasized that the figure shows that "usage has been low, highly inactive" and that the "results are not ideal."
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