How can digital RMB make money as the pilot program expands?

At present, the digital RMB pilot cities include Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei (Zhangjiakou, Xiongan New Area), Dalian, Shanghai, Suzhou, Zhejiang (Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Shaoxing, Jinhua, etc.), Fujian (Fuzhou, Xiamen, etc.), Qingdao, Changsha, Guangdong (Guangzhou, Shenzhen), Hainan Province, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an and other 23 regions.

From the perspective of marketization and policy making, discussing how to make money with digital RMB has become a more worthy issue to explore at the moment.

So is the digital RMB profitable? The overall situation that needs to be understood at present is that financial institutions represented by the six major banks mainly participate in the pilot construction of the digital RMB in the form of subsidies. But where there are market activities, there are profitable roles. So which roles are clearly profitable?

System and solution providers are making money. In February this year, TANSUN Technology stated on an interactive platform that it has generated direct income and profits from digital currency business, and will generate certain sustainable income in the future as banks carry out system transformation for digital currency. TANSUN Technology mainly provides customers with consulting, financial technology products, financial IT services, cloud computing and operation services.

In addition, in response to investors' questions about whether the digital currency business is profitable, Digital China stated that its independently developed digital RMB comprehensive service platform has been implemented in nearly 20 banking institutions such as China Guangfa Bank and Bank of Beijing, but the related business does not have a significant impact on operating performance.

The promotion of the digital RMB requires support from technology, products, and terminals. These service providers will benefit more or less, but the overall scale of the digital RMB is limited, so it remains to be seen in the long term.

Acquiring institutions make money from peripheral products. When answering the question about the profit point of the digital RMB, Lakala said that at present, no fees have been charged in the pilot phase of the digital RMB. The company has entered many large and medium-sized merchants that were not previously covered by the digital RMB, and has been involved in various scenarios such as supermarkets, business districts, catering services, parks and scenic spots, chain pharmacies, new energy vehicles, and public utilities, which has brought certain profits to the company's WeChat, Alipay, bank cards and other payment methods.

Although they did not make money directly from the digital RMB business, they did make money from merchants, expanded scenarios, and other aspects. Of course, it is difficult to calculate the stock gains of listed companies due to digital RMB concept stocks.

The ground-pushing service providers made money. In the pilot promotion of the digital RMB, many banks or acquiring institutions provided transformation support to existing merchants, while some expanded new merchants. Among them, banks subsidized service providers to help them expand digital RMB merchants. According to the mobile payment website, some banks have digital RMB merchant expansion indicators, and service providers have provided ground-pushing services for banks' digital RMB needs and received cooperation fees.

Previously, campus payment service provider Xinkaipu disclosed on March 30 that its digital RMB business had achieved revenue, accounting for a small proportion of the company's total revenue, but the details of the revenue realization were not announced.

It is understood that the specific implementation method of Xinkaipu's digital RMB is that users open a digital RMB wallet, and after signing the contract, they use its self-developed Perfect Campus digital RMB App sub-wallet to make payments in various scenarios. The author speculates that it is likely to help banks expand the benefits of digital RMB payment scenarios. In addition, Mobile Payment Network also learned that when banks expand the transportation payment scenarios of digital RMB, they will also pay relevant landing fees to transportation operators.

Gray industries such as pyramid schemes and frauds have "made money". In the context of rampant telecommunications fraud, hot topics may be used for fraud or pyramid schemes, and illegal fundraising may occur. (315 Attention | The problem of digital RMB fraud still needs attention) In the statistics of relevant topics on the mobile payment network, there have been illegal and irregular behaviors such as counterfeit digital RMB apps, digital RMB "running points" money laundering, and collecting six digital RMB to exchange for 1 million. This is an illegitimate profit, but it needs to be taken seriously.

Generally speaking, most of the profits made by companies in the market from digital RMB come from service support or peripheral profits. For a company, as long as the digital RMB is actively developing, its individual businesses can be profitable, but overall, how to create an industry win-win, rather than a subsidy-driven business model, is what policymakers should consider.