China’s central banking has an answer to counter the dominance posed by Alipay and WeChat in the online payments sector. As many know, it’s called the Digital Yuan, or Digital RMB, but it’s a tough sell. Turns out, as with most other things, coffee helps.
This past weekend, on 5 February, Nanjing held its first co-called “Digital RMB Consumption Scenario”. And for a suitable location was chosen the Unit 11 District of the Yihe Road Residential Area.
Given the locale’s connections with Republican-era Nanjing, it was perhaps an odd choice, or one intended to drum up a little additional patriotic spirit in support of the new financial initiative.
PSA Nanjing (南京发布) went as far as the exhortation; “Come on! [It’s the] Nanjing Branch of Bank of China!”. But just in case that wasn’t going to be enough to get potential consumers excited, they had a trick up their sleeve.
Coffee.
In the “Digital RMB Experience Area”, local Nanjing citizens had the opportunity to make a self-service purchase of coffee using Digital RMB. A little quaint perhaps, but the idea did nevertheless attract many who came for, well, a “taste” of the new digital money.
But we came to be here today after the “Jiangsu Provincial Digital RMB Pilot Work Plan” was issued by the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government on 30 January. Its Unique Selling Point? The highest forms of legal protection.
We get it, and Alipay and WeChat are also presumed to get it. But some are more interested in getting that coffee.
Ms. Chen, a Nanjing local, enjoyed the experience, saying, “After downloading the Digital RMB app, as long as I bind my Bank of China card [to it], I can buy coffee by myself. I think it is very convenient. The key is that the Digital RMB is endorsed by the Central Bank, which is very safe to use”.
Just as long as it has caffeine in it, right, Ms. Chen?
