The Chinese arm of French banking titan BNP Paribas has announced the launch of a platform to manage digital renminbi wallets, another boost for China’s central bank’s digital currency ( CBDC ).
According to Shanghai Securities Net, BNP Paribas China will team up with the state-owned commercial bank, Bank of China, to implement the project.
The French bank will launch a platform that will connect with the Bank of China’s own digital yuan ecosystem.
This will enable the first to provide e-CNY services to its corporate clients.
These include wallet opening and management services, as well as token conversion and spending options.
BNP Paribas China added that it and the state-owned bank will “jointly explore” a number of other business lines related to the digital yuan.
According to the Bank of China, this includes offline payments in digital yuan, as well as supply chain finance, smart contracts and cross-border payments.
BNP Paribas China Joins Digital Yuan Pilot Project: What Are Analysts Saying?
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) will likely see this announcement as a major coup.
The move was noted by the Chinese media.
The Paper (via Son ) quoted Sun Yang, a senior fintech researcher at Jiangsu Suning Bank, as saying the deal “reflects the expanding influence of the digital yuan in the international market.”
Sun Yang said of the deal:
“[Це] an important milestone for the Chinese yuan. The involvement of foreign banks in the renminbi digital wallet can create conditions for the internationalization of the renminbi. It can provide more tools for foreign financial users. This can facilitate cross-border payments between China and other countries.”
Mr. Helin, head of the Digital Economy and Financial Innovation Research Center of Zhejiang University’s International Business School, said foreign banks participating in the CBDC pilot project will be able to provide more tools to foreign players in cross-border business. payment space.
And this, according to Pan, can, in turn, “open up new opportunities for the internationalization of the yuan.”
The development comes amid last month’s revelation that Argentina will start trading with China in yuan, abandoning the US dollar.
Earlier this week, Hebei province began trying to speed up the adoption of the digital yuan by issuing discount coupons to residents.
The project is implemented jointly with another state-owned commercial bank, Bank of Communications.
