The country’s first digital RMB prepaid consumption platform is here, with the education and training industry being the first choice. Let’s see what’s different?

I believe you are familiar with prepaid consumption, but have you ever experienced digital RMB prepaid consumption? On May 6, a Beijing Business Daily reporter learned that the country's first digital RMB prepaid consumption platform was launched in Futian, Shenzhen, and the education and training industry was selected as the first pilot.

Image source: Beijing Business Daily

Under the guidance of the Shenzhen Branch of the People's Bank of China and the Shenzhen Local Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, on May 6, the Futian District Government and Shenzhen Construction Bank jointly held the launch and signing ceremony of the country's first prepaid platform for digital RMB education and training institutions. Shenzhen Construction Bank signed a digital RMB cooperation agreement with the first batch of cooperative education and training institutions, marking the successful implementation of the project in Futian District.

This is the first digital RMB prepaid consumption platform in the country, and it is also an important measure for Futian District to build a digital RMB demonstration zone. Shenzhen Construction Bank said that the project provides another replicable and popularizable "Shenzhen experience" and "Futian experience" for the integrated application of smart contract technology in the field of digital RMB, reflecting the advantages of digital RMB as a financial infrastructure in promoting the development of inclusive finance, and has important strategic significance for accelerating the implementation of various digital RMB pilot projects in Futian District and even Shenzhen City.

The digital RMB smart contract platform will first be piloted in prepaid consumption scenarios in educational institutions. It is understood that prepaid consumption is a consumption model that has been widely recognized in the market and is spread across a variety of industries, but traditional prepaid consumption has pain points such as difficulty in refunding after termination of consumption, difficulty in seeking compensation after closing down, and difficulty in proving consumer rights protection. The digital RMB smart contract technology can solve the pain points of this industry.

Specifically, for industry regulatory departments, the digital RMB smart contract technology can empower regulatory measures to achieve the goal of complete prepaid transaction information and transparent links; for consumers, digital RMB prepaid funds are supervised by smart contracts and are tamper-proof, providing security for prepaid funds, minimizing the risks of "prepaid fees" and preventing infringement of consumers' legitimate rights and interests; for prepaid consumption institutions, the application of digital RMB smart contracts provides the general public with a better consumer experience.

Taking advantage of the digital RMB smart contract technology, the Futian District Government and Shenzhen Construction Bank have carried out pilot projects in high-quality education and training institutions in the Futian District to promote the construction of a prepaid platform for digital RMB education and training institutions. After consumers use digital RMB to pay fees on the platform, the prepaid funds will be "frozen" in the digital RMB wallet, and can be written off in different ways such as the number of classes, and the prepaid funds can be "cleared one by one, one by one, one by one, and ...

Wang Pengbo, a senior financial analyst at Broadcom Consulting, told the Beijing Business Daily that there are two highlights of Futian's digital RMB smart contract technology . The first is that the digital RMB, as originally expected, is equipped with smart contracts in the pilot. The unified characteristics of the dual streams allow targeted payments to have a real landing scenario, which can bring out the greater value of the digital RMB. The second is that prepaid fees in the education and training industry have always been very controversial, occupying more funds and their use is not transparent, and refunds have become difficult. This pilot cleverly utilizes the characteristics of the digital RMB and combines it with scenarios where there is real demand.

Shenzhen Construction Bank said that under the guidance of the Shenzhen Branch of the People's Bank of China, Shenzhen Construction Bank, as one of the first designated operating institutions of the digital RMB, actively responded to the national call for digital economy construction, and used new financial concepts through the "circle chain" service model to promote the digital RMB to a wider level and deeper field development.

It is reported that as of now, Shenzhen Construction Bank's core indicators such as active digital RMB wallets, number of circulation transactions, and circulation amount continue to lead local peers, accounting for more than 40% of the market. The platform will be piloted in the education and training industry in Futian District, Shenzhen. After the pilot matures, it will be fully promoted throughout the city, including prepaid industries such as education and training, beauty and hairdressing, and sports and fitness.

"The most important breakthrough this time is to explore ways to make breakthroughs in specific scenarios, so that digital RMB can truly become a rigid demand for payment in this scenario from the bottom up. This is of great significance to the promotion of digital RMB," said Wang Pengbo.

At present, as the pilot continues to advance, the digital RMB is penetrating and expanding into more small-amount, high-frequency scenarios, and is also constantly innovating service functions around consumers' daily lives. Data shows that as of the end of 2021, the digital RMB pilot scenarios have exceeded 8.0851 million, with a total of 261 million personal wallets opened and a transaction amount of 87.565 billion yuan.

In addition, as of the end of 2021, more than 50 third-party Internet platforms have supported the optional use of digital RMB for consumer transactions , initially forming a number of replicable and popularizable application scenarios, and gradually building a digital RMB payment ecosystem.

In the industry's view, at present, the digital RMB is advancing in a three-dimensional manner, breaking through spatial regions and continuously expanding to a wide range of daily life scenarios. The use of digital RMB also fully reflects its characteristics of safety, efficiency and convenience. In the future, various regions will also actively combine various consumer pain points, continuously enrich consumer usage scenarios, promote digital RMB, and innovatively develop various digital RMB wallets.