The central bank added 11 cities as digital renminbi pilot areas.
According to the news on the central bank’s website on April 2, the central bank recently held a symposium on the research and development of digital renminbi, and decided to add 11 cities as digital renminbi based on the existing pilot areas. RMB pilot areas. The new pilot areas include: Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Guangdong, Fuzhou and Xiamen in Fujian, and six cities in Zhejiang (Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua) that host the Asian Games.
Previously, the digital RMB pilot areas include Shanghai, Hainan, Changsha, Xi’an, Qingdao, Dalian, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Xiong’an New Area, ten places in Chengdu and the Beijing Winter Olympics field etc. The symposium also mentioned that Beijing and Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province will be converted into pilot areas after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympic scenarios are completed. So far, the digital renminbi pilot areas have covered the four municipalities directly under the Central Government.
The meeting also requested that the digital RMB research and development pilot will adhere to the “two-tier operation” structure, give full play to the advantageous role of designated operating agencies, and increase pilot applications and ecosystem construction. . Strengthen the construction of safety and risk prevention and control systems, improve relevant laws and regulations and standard systems, deepen research on theoretical issues, and continuously consolidate the foundation of digital RMB research and development pilot projects. 
The latest pilot areas and operating institutions displayed by the Digital RMB App
Currently, the designated operating institutions for digital RMB include ICBC, Agricultural Bank, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, Postal Savings Bank, China Merchants Bank, WeBank, MYbank, etc. 
The digital RMB propaganda poster of Zhejiang Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
Su Xiaorui, a senior analyst in the financial industry of Analysys, told the news that after a series of pilot work in the early stage and various With the expansion of scenarios, digital renminbi has now accumulated rich application experience, the frequency of use has continued to increase, and the number of wallets opened has continued to expand, showing a positive and positive development overall.
According to the data previously released by the central bank, as of December 31, 2021, there have been more than 8.0851 million digital RMB pilot scenarios, a total of 261 million personal wallets have been opened, and the transaction amount has reached 87.565 billion yuan.
“From this point of view, the expansion of the digital renminbi pilot is also expected.” Su Xiaorui said that the expansion covers both Tianjin and Chongqing. The municipalities directly under the central government also include developed cities in coastal areas such as Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong. These areas have two characteristics: one is good infrastructure; the other is rich application scenarios, enabling more merchants to access digital RMB The application system can also enable more people in the region to experience convenient digital renminbi payment services, thus laying a solid foundation for the smooth development of the digital renminbi pilot work.
Wang Zhicheng, associate professor of the Department of Finance, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, also told the news that the choice of these cities is to further expand consumption scenarios, and the selection is made outside the pilot cities in the early stage. Importantly, it belongs to the mainstream of new first- and second-tier cities, and cities with consumption characteristics mean that the further promotion of digital renminbi, the scope of use will be wider, and the scale of use will also be greatly improved, and the distance will be comprehensive nationwide. Promotion is closer.
“Every place is actively striving for pilot qualifications.” Yang Zeyuan, chief computer industry analyst at CITIC Securities, mentioned in the research report that the scope of the digital renminbi pilot continues to expand and the application content The process of continuously deepening and enriching application scenarios will run through the entire “14th Five-Year Plan”, gradually bringing the construction and use of digital renminbi to the industrial side and commercial application side.
Su Xiaorui also said that it is expected that the digital renminbi will continue to advance steadily. While the scope of the pilot area continues to expand, more users will open digital renminbi wallets and use them. digital yuan. In terms of scenarios, the follow-up types are expected to be more abundant. From the original small retail pilot, it will gradually extend to large-value payment, cross-border payment and other fields. It is recommended that large-scale platforms with rich Internet facilities and a large user base actively participate in the digital RMB pilot project.
“As the payment infrastructure in the digital economy era, the promotion of digital renminbi is the general trend. Based on the characteristics of digital renminbi, users’ payment habits and the mobile payment market pattern may welcome opportunities for reshaping. The active participation of various manufacturers is expected to bring more imagination to the promotion and application of digital renminbi.” Yang Zeyuan said that digital renminbi has the technical conditions for cross-border use, and it is expected to extend from the retail field to the cross-border payment field in the future. A country that develops advantages and strengthens the renminbiinternational competitiveness. With the continuous advancement of digital renminbi applications, related industry chains are expected to continue to benefit. It is recommended to pay attention to service providers related to hard wallet manufacturing, collection equipment & acceptance terminal supporting transformation, commercial banking system construction, and security technology.
Wanlian Securities stated that with the orderly expansion of pilot cities and pilot scenarios, the frequency of use of digital renminbi will increase rapidly, which will help to examine the digital currency more deeply The performance of the RMB system has further improved it to a stable and easy-to-use level at the technical level. In this process, digital renminbi-related software and hardware manufacturers are expected to benefit.
Essence Securities previously pointed out that the entire digital RMB transformation is expected to drive a total investment scale of 116.5 billion yuan, including the ATM transformation market. 50.7 billion yuan, intelligent counter machine market 11.4 billion yuan, POS transformation market 19.2 billion yuan, hard wallet market 33.9 billion yuan, and bank IT system transformation market 1.3 billion yuan.
The six major state-owned commercial banks, as designated operators of digital renminbi, also disclosed the latest progress and next steps on digital renminbi in their 2021 annual reports.
ICBC stated in its annual report that it is accelerating the construction of ICBC e-life platform, promoting the integration and innovation of “credit card + digital RMB”, and realizing digital The closed-loop transaction of RMB e-life payment and QR code payment.
CCB disclosed that as of the end of 2021, the bank has accumulated more than 84.75 million digital RMB transactions with an amount of about 43.5 billion yuan.
Bank of China disclosed that its mobile banking function continued to be upgraded, and the number of digital RMB wallets opened exponentially. The bank deeply integrates digital RMB business with featured scenarios, and currently accounts for 34% and 36% of the market in the number of scenarios that have been opened and the number of merchant stores, ranking first among operating institutions.
Agricultural Bank of China stated that it has established a FinTech Innovation Center in Xiongan New Area to carry out research and application promotion in the frontier areas of FinTech. At the same time, establish a digital renminbi engineering office to strengthen the professional strength of digital renminbi R&D and application.
Postal Savings Bank of China also stated that it has launched a total of more than 230 functional components of digital RMB products, covering personal wallets, public wallets, merchants collection, operation management, etc. Boost the digital renminbiAbility to pay for services. At the same time, the digital RMB department of the first-level department was added at the head office to strengthen the organizational support for the development of digital RMB business.
Bank of Communications disclosed that it had 236,400 digital renminbi application scenarios last year; it took the lead in realizing the national digital renminbi tax payment business in Hainan Province. At the same time, Bank of Communications is further exploring the integration of digital renminbi applications with the digital transformation of enterprises and industries, and building an ecosystem that develops together with customers through the construction of (non-)financial ecological scenarios.