Speaking at the Hong Kong Fintech Week conference on Nov. 2, Yi Gang, a governor of the people’s Bank of China, said nearly $300 million of digital yuan has been spent in various pilot programs.
Huawei has announced that its new range of smartphones will support hardware wallets for the digital yuan. In a post uploaded to its Weibo page, the tech giant claimed that the Mate 40 is the first device to support China’s upcoming digital currency.
Mu Changchun, the head of the research institute for digital currency at the People’s Bank of China, said that the central bank digital currency won’t compete with the two services, which together hold 94% of the market.
While nothing has been decided, the possibility of launching a digital ruble “is quite real,” she said. It will not replace the physical ruble, she added. The digital ruble project “fits very organically into what is called the development of the digital economy as a whole,” Nabiullina said. “A digital transformation is taking place. Of course, there must be a transformation of the settlement system.”
