China’s digital yuan wallet downloaded by 261m individuals

In development since 2014, the e-CNY wallet underwent extensive field testing across the country before making its way to the iOS and Android stores at the beginning of this year.

Although still in pilot phase, take-up has accelerated in recent months, Zou Lan, head of financial markets at the People’s Bank of China said at a recent press event, according to local reports.

The wallet is now starting to catch up with China’s dominant commercial payment apps from Ant Group and Tencent, which together account for around 94% of the digital payments marketplace.

According to Morning Consult, these apps are not only ubiquitous, they are also well-liked, with 83% of Chinese adults having at least a somewhat favourable opinion of them.

Currently only 60% of those surveyed by Morning Consult also regard the e-CNY favourably, although more than a third had not heard of or had no opinion about it.

More than a quarter of those surveyed say they don’t use the e-CNY app because they don’t need it, while 17% say they prefer using an alternative. However, 26% say they don’t use it because they don’t know how, and 13% cite technical barriers like not residing in a pilot city (nine per cent) or not having a smartphone that supports the app (four per cent).

Of those that do use the e-CNY wallet, 72% say they use it for online shopping and 67% for paying for public services such as transportation.

Meanwhile, Ghana is now doing both an online and offline piloting of the Central Bank Digital Currency called the eCedi with a few selected entities, ahead of a full blown implementation either later this year or early next year.

The Bank of Ghana has said that it is so far encouraged by the adoption and use cases and they are very confident that the eCedi will do when when it fully implemented.

Meanwhile, government has recently launched the GhanaPay digital wallet, which is an across bank mobile money wallet that allows users to directly access their bank accounts for instant payments on the mobile phones just like they do with mobile money.

Several banks in Ghana have already started activating the GhanaPay wallets on their platforms, while a few are still working on a rollout later.