Beijing, July 16 (Reporter Xu Peiyu) On July 16, the People's Bank of China Digital RMB R&D Working Group released a white paper on the progress of China's digital RMB R&D. The white paper clearly states that digital RMB is the legal currency issued by the People's Bank of China, which is mainly positioned as cash payment vouchers and will coexist with physical RMB for a long time. As a retail central bank digital currency, it is mainly used to meet domestic retail payment demand.

The relevant person in charge of the People's Bank of China said that with the vigorous development of network technology and digital economy, the public's demand for convenience, security, inclusiveness, privacy and other aspects of retail payment is increasing. The central banks or monetary authorities of many countries and regions closely follow the achievements of financial technology development and actively explore the digital form of legal tender. Legal tender is moving from theory to reality.

The People's Bank of China attaches great importance to the research and development of legal digital currency. In 2014, a legal digital currency research group was established to carry out special research on the issuance framework, key technologies, issuance and circulation environment and relevant international experience. In 2016, the Digital Currency Research Institute was established to complete the construction of the first generation prototype system of legal digital currency. At the end of 2017, with the approval of the State Council, the People's Bank of China began to organize commercial institutions to jointly carry out research and development experiments on legal digital currency (hereinafter referred to as digital RMB). At present, the research and development test has basically completed the top-level design, function research and development, system commissioning and other work, and is following the principles of stability, safety, controllability, innovation and practicality to select some representative regions to carry out pilot tests.

The white paper shows that as of the end of June, the number of digital RMB pilot scenarios has exceeded 1.32 million, covering such fields as living payment, catering services, transportation, shopping and consumption, and government services. More than 20.87 million personal wallets and 3.51 million corporate wallets were opened, with a total of more than 70.75 million transactions and an amount of about 34.5 billion yuan.

The white paper pointed out that China's research and development of the digital RMB system is aimed at creating a new type of RMB in digital form for the purpose of meeting the public's cash needs under the digital economy, supported by a reliable, stable, fast, efficient, sustainable innovation and open competition financial infrastructure in the retail payment field, supporting the development of China's digital economy and improving the development level of inclusive finance, Improve the operating efficiency of the currency and payment system.

The People's Bank of China will, in accordance with the deployment of the "14th Five Year Plan", continue to steadily promote the pilot research and development of digital RMB, without preset timetable, study and improve relevant systems and rules, strengthen the study of major issues, deepen the research and assessment of the deep impact of legal digital currency on monetary policy, financial system and financial stability, It will lay a good theoretical and policy foundation and application prospect for the research and development of digital RMB.

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