Image Source : China Visual

BEIJING, September 9 (TMTPOST) – The barriers in the national payment market have attracted the attention of many professionals in the industry, and the promotion and popularization of digital yuan might be one of the solutions.

Digital yuan is a part of the modern public financial infrastructure and a major upgrade to the technology, organization and business model of the central bank's payment system. Throuhgh this upgrade, it will achieve the coordination and integration of the national payment market, break down payment barriers, improve user experience and provide important support for the development of digital finance, Zhou Xiaochuan, vice chairman of Boao Forum for Asia, said at the at the Second China (Beijing) Digital Finance Forum 2022 on Thursday.

In fact, breaking the payment market barriers through the central bank's digital currency is not only the strategic thinking of China but also the central banks of various countries. Based on the statements of central bankers, they do not see the popularization of their central bank digital currency as a monetary competition among countries, but mainly to maintain the status of their legal tender against the backdrop of increasing digitization and commercial bank currencies of private sector institutions occupying an increasingly large share of payments. In this way, it is helpful to cope with the innovation of various private sector institutions such as Libra and third-party payment institutions, and to break down potential payment Industry Barriers.

In addition to the issue of payment barriers, Zhou re-emphasized the positioning of the digital RMB at the forum - to play an infrastructure role in the retail payments sector.

"Many central banks around the world have embarked on central bank digital currency research and development, and China has been at the forefront. The Digital Currency Electronic Payment project pilot has gained rich experiencee, with expanding application scenarios and broad prospects." Zhou noted that compared to developed countries such as the U.S. and Europe that focus digital currencies on cross-border payments, the digital RMB focuses on the retail payment segment.

As a retail payment tool, digital RMB can provide greater convenience to people in all works of lives. At the same time, Zhou also mentioned that cross-border payments and settlement of digital currencies by central banks also require coordination and cooperation between countries in terms of foreign exchange management policies and financial infrastructure.