As the digital renminbi offers a wide range of application scenarios in Luohu and some other districts in Shenzhen, such form of currency has become an integrated part of local residents’ daily lives.
Luohu led the digital renminbi pilot program in Shenzhen in 2020. It handed out “red envelopes” with a total amount of 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) to residents to promote the new form of currency and consumption.
With more and more retailers joining the program, people can conveniently pay with digital renminbi through a digital wallet installed on their smartphones in almost all major convenience stores, supermarkets, department stores, public transportation, vegetable markets and restaurants in Shenzhen.
The payment ecology of the digital renminbi has covered almost all consumption fields of Shenzhen residents, changing their payment habits.
Moreover, the Shenzhen municipal government also pays its funds and subsidies through digital renminbi. By the end of 2021, a total of 616 million yuan of digital renminbi had been handed out to 2,422 micro and small-sized enterprises in the city.
Traceability, transparency, and irreversibility are the unique characteristics of digital renminbi smart contracts, which can enhance the efficiency of appropriating enterprise funds and reduce the risk of misappropriation.
By August this year, 1.05 million digital renminbi application scenarios had been launched in Shenzhen, and 26.71 million digital renminbi wallets had been downloaded and installed, with a total transaction value of 18.4 billion yuan.